
Class JjlL 



Book. 



£m 



GojpgM . 




COPYRIGHT DEKISIR 






THE SPANISH STORY OF 
THE ARMADA 

4ND OTHER ESSAYS 



FROUDE'S WORKS. 



History of England, from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death 

of Elizabeth. Twelve vols., nmo, gilt top, . . S18.00 

The English in Ireland in the Eighteenth Century. Three 

vols., 121110, . 4.50 

Short Studies on Great Subjects. Four vols. iamo. Per 

vol., 1.50 

Life and Times of Thomas Becket. i2mo, paper, .50 

Caesar. A Sketch. 121110, gilt top, ..... 1.50 

Luther. A Short Biography. Cloth. 75 cts. Paper, . . .30 

Thomas Carlyle. Library Edition. Four vols., 8vo, . . 8.00 

Cheaper Edition. Two vols., i2mo, .... 3.00 

Jane Welsh Carlyle. Letters and Memorials of. Library 

Edition. Two vols., 8vo, 4.00 

Cheaper Edition. One vol., 121T10, .... 1.50 

Thomas Carlyle. Reminiscences by. 8vo, . . . . 2.50 

Cheaper Edition. 121110, 1.50 

Oceana. England and Her Colonies. Illus. Crown 8vo, . 1.75 

The English in the West Indies; or, The Bow of Ulysses. 

Illus. Crown 8vo, ........ 1.75 

The Divorce of Catherine of Aragon. 8vo, .... 2.50 

The Spanish Story of the Armada, and other Essays. i2mo. 1.50 



THE SPANISH STORY OF 
THE ARMADA 



AND OTHER ESSAYS 



JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE 



ty<o Se 1810s eV koivw araXeis 
fifjriv re yapvdiv iriikiuyovwv 
TToXifiov t iv ljpcoiais apiTcucnv 
ov ^f(v<Joy. dfi<p\ Kopiv6q> 

Pindar, Olymp. Carm. XIII. 



NEW YORK 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 



12 '7*7/ ^ 



1892 mv x 



f . 




• 



COPYRIGHT, 1892, BY 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 






TROW DIRECTORY 

PRINTING AND BOOK8INDING COMPANY 

NEW YORK 



PREFACE 

After completing my " History of England " from the 
fall of Wolsey to the defeat of the Spanish Armada, I 
had intended to pursue the story of the sixteenth cen- 
tury, and to write the lives of Charles the Fifth and 
Philip the Second. To them had fallen the task of con- 
fronting the storm winch had broken over the rest of 
Europe. The opening of the Archives of Spain, Paris, 
and Vienna had for the first time made it possible to see 
the position in which they found themselves, to under- 
stand their characters and to weigh impartially their 
conduct in a situation so extraordinary. My own par- 
tial researches had already shown me that the prevailing 
opinions about these two princes required wide coi'rec- 
tion, and I thought that I could not better employ the 
remainder of my life than on an inquiry so profoundly 
interesting. To regard the Emperor, to regard Philip, 
merely as reactionary bigots, is as unjust as it is unin- 
structive. They had to deal with a world in arms, with 
a condition in which society was disintegrated by a uni- 
versal spiritual revolt, of which the outcome was still 
utterly uncertain, and at such a crisis the wisest states- 
men must have necessarily been divided on the conduct 
which duty required of them. 



vi Preface 

The labor of investigation would have been very great, 
and the years which I could have devoted to it would at 
most have been none too many for so ambitious an en- 
terprise. I was obliged by circumstances to lay my pur- 
pose aside until it was too late to begin ; and it will fall 
to others, perhaps" better qualified than myself, to exe- 
cute what, if successfully performed, will be the best 
service that can now be rendered to modern history. Of 
my own attempts nothing has come, or now can come, 
save a few separate studies, such as the story of Queen 
Catherine's Divorce as related by Charles the Fifth's 
ambassadors, with the slight essays which form half this 
present volume, and have been already published in dif- 
ferent periodicals. 

The Divorce of Catherine has been brought out in a 
separate form as a supplement to my "History of Eng- 
land." The essaj's I reproduce because they were care- 
fully written, and I hope may have some interest to his- 
torical students. The defeat of the Armada transferred 
the Empire of the Sea from Spain to England, and the 
Spanish account of it cannot be read without curiosity 
and even sympathy. The "Relacion " of Antonio Perez 
has, for three centuries, been the chief authority for the 
private character of Philip the Second. Philip was once 
titular King of England. I have thought it worth while 
to examine the character of his accuser. The " Life of 
Saint Teresa" exhibits the "spiritual enthusiasm of the 
Spanish nation in its noblest form. 



Preface vii 

The subjects which occupy the remainder of the vol- 
ume have uo connection with the sixteenth century. 
Others, however, besides myself will have observed, at 
least with curiosity, the majestic figures which lie on the 
floor of the Antechapel in the Temple Church, and will 
have asked themselves who and what these men could 
have been when they lived onearth in flesh and blood. 
The publication of the " Proces des Templiers " by M. 
Michelet provides an answer to the question. 

Sir George Lewis said that life would be very tolera- 
ble if it was not for its amusements. Life, however, 
without any amusements would be tedious, and books 
given wholly to serious matters are tedious also. Au- 
thors, like school-boys, require holidays, and the sketches 
of the Norway Fjords are the records of two summer 
excursions into those delightful regions, as a guest in 
the yacht of a friend. Our graver writings are the re- 
flections of our studies. Some taste of the flavor of our 
enjoyments may be preserved in the diaries of our idle- 
ness. 



CONTENTS 

PAOE 

TnE Spanish Story of the Armada, .... 1 
Antonio Perez: An Unsolved Historical Riddle, . 90 

Saint Teresa, 155 

The Templars, 219 

The Norway Fjords, 272 

Norway Once More, . . • . . . .314 



I 



THE SPANISH STORY OF THE AHMADA 



The fate of the great expedition sent by Philip the 
Second to restore the Papal authority in England has 

been related often in prose and verse. It is the most 
dramatic incident in our national history, and the ma- 
terials for a faithful account of it in the contemporary 
narratives are unusually excellent. The English nature 
on that occasion was seen at its very best. The days 
had not yet come of inflated self-praise ; and the spirit 
which produces actions of real merit is usually simple 
in the description of such actions. Good wine needs no 
bush ; the finest jewels need least a gaudy setting; and 
as the newspaper correspondent was not yet bora, and 
the men who did the fighting wrote also the reports 
the same fine and modest temper is equally seen in 
both. 

N< cessarily, however, Englishmen could only tell 
what they themselves had seen, and the other side of the 
story has been left untold. The Spanish historians have 
never attempted to minimize the magnitude of their dis- 
aster but they have Left the official records to sleep in the 
shades of their public offices, and what the Spanish 
commanders might have themselves to say of their de- 
feat and its causes has been left hitherto imprinted. I 
discovered, myself, at Simancas the narrative of the Ac- 
countant-General of the Fleet, Don Pedro Coco Calderon, 



2 The Spanish Story of the Armada 

and made use of it in my own history. But Don Pedro's 
account showed only how much more remained to be 
discovered, of which I myself could find no record either 

in print or MS. 

The defect has now been supplied by the industry and 
patriotism of an officer in the present Spanish Navy, who 
has brought together a collection oi letters and docu- 
ments bearing on the Subject which are signally curious 
and interesting.* Captain Fernandez Duro deserves 
grateful thanks and recognition, as enabling us for the 
first time really to understand what took place. But 
more than that, he reproduces the spirit anil genius of 
the time ; he enables us to see, face to face, the De Valdez, 
tin' Recaldes, the Oquendos, the De Leyvas, who had 
hitherto been only names to us. The " Iliad " would lose 
half its interest if we knew only Agamemnon and Achilles, 
and knew nothing of Priam and Hector. The live days' 
s in the English Channel in August, L588, was fought 
out between men, on both sides, of a signally gallant and 
noble nature ; and when the asperities of theology shall 
have mellowed down at last. Spanish and English au- 
thorities together will furnish materials for a great epic 
poem. 

i il that happy and still far-distant time shall arrive, 
we must appropriate and take up into the story Captain 
Duro's contribution. "With innocent necromancy he calls 
the dead out of their graves, and makes them play their 
drama over again. With his assistanee we will turn to 
the city of Lisbon on April 25 of the Annus Mirabilis. 
The preparations were then all but completed for the in- 
vasion of England and the overthrow of the Protestant 
heresy. From all parts of Catholic Europe the prayers 
of the faithful had ascended for more than a year in a 
* La Armada Tnvencible. For el Capitaa Fernandes Duro. 



Thi Spanish Story of the Armada, 3 

stream of passionate entreaty that God would arise and 
make His power known. Masses )ja«l been said day after 
day on fifty thousand altars ; and devout monks and nuns 
had bruised their knees in midnight watches on the chapel 
pavements. The event so long hoped for was to i 
at last. On that day the consecrated standard was to 
be presented in stato to the Commander-in-Chief of 
the Expedition. Catholics had collected from every 
corner of the world ; Spanish and Italian, French and 
Irish, English and German, owning a common nation- 
ality in the Church, The Portuguese alone of Cath- 
olic nations looked on in indifference. Portugal had 
been recently annexed by force to Spain. The wound 
was still bleeding, and even religion failed to unite 
the nobles and people in common cause with their 
conquerors. But Lisbon had ceased to be a Portui 
city. Philip dealt with it as he pleased, and the Church 
of Portugal, at least, on this occasion, was at Philip's 
disposition. 

There was something of real piety in what was going 
on ; and there was much of the artificial emotion which 
bore the same relation to piety which the enthusiasm of 
Ihe Knight of La Mancha bore to true chivalry. Philip 
If in certain aspects of his character was not un- 
like Don Quixote. He believed that he was divinely 
commissioned to extirpate the dragons and monsters of 
heresy. As the adventure with the enchanted horse bad 
been specially reserved for Don Quixote, so the "Enter- 
prise of England," in the inflated language of the time, 
was said to have been reserved for Philip ; and as analo- 
gies are apt to complete themselves, the short, good- 
humored, and entirely incapable Medina Sidonia, "who 
had been selected for Commander-in-Chief, had a cer- 
tain resemblance to Sancho. The Duhe of Medina had 



4 The Spanish Story of the Armada 

no ambition for such adventures ; he would have greatly 
preferred slaving at home, and only consented to take 
the command out of a oertain dog-like obedienoe to his 
master. The representatives of the imaginary powers 
had boon called in to bring him to accept the danger- 
ous responsibility. A pious hermit told him that he h;nl 
boon instructed by tho Almighty to promise him victory. 
The Prioress of the Aununciata, Maria do la Visitation, 
who had received the five wounds and was punished after- 
ward as a detected impostor, had seen Santiago and 
two angels smiting Drake and his unbelieving comrades, 
and she assured the Puke of glory in both worlds if he 
went. Tho Duke's experience o( English Admirals had 
boon, so far. not glorious to him at all. Ho had been 
in command at Cadiz a year before when tho English 
iloot sailod up tho harbor, burnt eighteen largo ships, 
and wont off unfought with, taking six more away with 
thorn. All Spain had cried shame and had called tho 
Duke a coward, but Philip had refused to bo displeased, 
and had deliberately chosen him for an undertaking far 
moro arduous than tho defence of a provincial port 
On this April 25 ho was to receive his commission, 
with the standard under which ho was to <^o into ac- 
tion, and tho Catholic Church was to celebrate tho oc- 
casion with its imposing splendors and imperious sol- 
emnities. 

Tho Armada lay in the Tagus waiting tho completion 
of the ceremony. It was the most powerful armament 
which had ever boon collected in modern Europe, a hun- 
dred and thirty ships -groat galleons from a thousand 
to thirteen hundred tons ; galliasses rowed by three hun- 
dred slaves, carrying fifty guns ; galleys almost as for- 
midable, and other vessels, the best appointed which 
Spain and Italy could produce. They carried nine thou- 



T/te Spanish Story of the Armada 5 

sand seamen, seasoned mariners who li.t'l served in all 
parts of the world, and seventeen thousand soldiers, who 

were to join the Prince of Parma and assist, in the con- 
quest of England. Besides them were some hundreds 
of nobles and gentlemen who, with their servants and 
retinues, had volunteered for the new crusade, gallant, 
high-spirited youths, quite ready to fight with Satan 
himself in the cause of Spain and Holy Church. In them 
all was a fine profession of enthusiasm — qualified, in- 
deed, among the seamen by a demand for wages in ad- 
vance, and a tendency to desert when they received them. 
lint :i regiment of priests, dispersed through the various 
squadrons, kept alive in most the sense that they were 
going on the most glorious expedition ever undertaken 
by man. 

The standard which was to be presented itself indi- 
cated the sacred character of the war. Into the Royal 
Arms of Spain there had been introduced as supporters 
on one side Christ on the Cross, on the other the Virgin 
mother ; and on the scroll below was written : " Exsurge 
Deus et vindica causam tuam," " Arise, O Lord, and 
avenge thy cause." "Philip, by the grace of God King 
of Castillo, of Leon, of Aragon, the two Sicilies, Jerusa- 
lem, Portugal, Navarre, Granada, Toledo, Valencia, 
Gallicia, Majorca, Sardinia, Cordova, Corsica, Murcia, 
Jaen, Algaves, Algesiras, Gibraltar, the Canary Islands, 
the East and West Indies, the Isles and Continents of 
the Ocean ; Archduke of Austria, Duke of Burgundy, of 
Brabant anil Milan, Count of Hapsburgh, Count of 
Flanders, Tirol, and Barcelona ; Lord of Biscay and 
Molina," etc.; the monarch, in short, whose name was 
swathed in these innumerable titles, had determined to 
commit the sacred banner to his well-beloved Don Alonzo 
de Guzman, surnamed El Bueno, or the Good, and 



6 The Spanish Story of the Armada 

under its folds to sweep the ocean clear of the piratical 
squadrons of tlie English Queen. The scene was the 
great metropolitan church of Lisbon, the Iglesia Major. 
It was six o'clock in the morning ; streets and squares 
were lined with troops who had been landed from the 
ships. The King was represented by his nephew, the 
Cardinal Archduke, who was Viceroy of Portugal. The 
Viceroy rode out of the Palace with the Duke on his 
right hand, followed by the gentlemen adventurers of 
the expedition in their splendid dresses. At the church 
they were received by the Archbishop. The standard 
was placed on the altar. Mass was sung. The Viceroy 
then led the Duke up the altar steps, lifted a fold of the 
standard and placed it in his hands, while, as the signal 
was passed outside, the ships in the river and the troops 
in the streets fired a salute — " una pequena salva," a 
small one, for powder was scarce and there was none to 
waste. The scene was not impressive ; and the effect 
was frittered away in a complexity of details. The Arch- 
bishop took the Holy Sacrament and passed out of the 
church, followed by a stream of monks and secular 
clergy. The Archduke and the newly-made Admiral 
went after them, the standard being borne by the Duke's 
cousin, Don Luis of Cordova, who was to accompany 
him to England. In this order they crossed the great 
square to the Dominican Convent, where the scene in 
the Iglesia Major was repeated. The Dominicans re- 
ceived the procession at the door. The standard was 
again laid on the altar, this time by the Duke of Medina 
himself, as if to signify the consecration of his own per- 
son to the service of the beings whose forms were em- 
broidered upon it. The religious part of the transaction 
finished, they returned to the Palace, and stood on the 
marble stairs while the troops fired a second volley. The 



The Spanish Story of the Armada 7 

men were then marched to their boats, with an eye on 
them to see that none deserted, and His Royal Highness 
and the Captain General of the Ocean, as the Duke was 
now entitled, went in to breakfast. 

The presentation had wanted dignity and perhaps 
seriousness. There was no spontaneous enthusiasm. 
The Portuguese aristocracy were pointedly absent, and 
the effect was rather of some artificial display got up by 
the clergy and the Government. And yet the expedition 
of which this scene was the preliminary had for sixty 
years been the dream of Catholic piety, and the discharge 
at last of a duty with which the Spanish nation appeared 
to be peculiarly charged. The Reformation in England 
had commenced with the divorce of a Spanish Princess. 
Half the English nation had been on Catherine's side 
and had invited Philip's father to send troops to help 
them to maintain her. As the quarrel deepened, and 
England became the stronghold of heresy, the English 
Catholics, the Popes, the clergy universally had entreated 
Charles, and Philip after him, to strike at the heart of 
the mischief and take a step which, if successful, would 
end the Protestant rebellion and give peace to Europe. 
The great Emperor and Philip, too, had listened reluct- 
antly. Rulers responsible for the administration of 
kingdoms do not willingly encourage subjects in rebel- 
lion, even under the plea of religion. The divorce of 
Catherine had been an affront to Charles the Fifth and 
to Spain, yet it was not held to be a sufficient ground 
for war, and Philip had resisted for a quarter of a century 
the supplications of the suffering saints to deliver them 
from the tyranny of Elizabeth. It was an age of revolt 
against established authority. New ideas, new obliga- 
tions of duty were shaking mankind. Obedience to God 
was held as superior to obedience to man ; while each 



S The Spanish Story of the Armada 

man was forming for himself his own conception of 
what God required of him. The intellect of Europe was 
outgrowing its creed. Part of the world had discovered 
that doctrines and practices which had lasted for fifteen 
hundred years were false and idolatrous. Tho other 
and larger part called the dissentients rebels and chil- 
dren of the Devil, and set to work to burn and kill 
them. At such times kings and princes have enough to 
do to maintain order in their own dominions, and oven 
when they are of opposite sides have a common interest 
in maintaining the principle of authority. Nor when 
the Pope himself spoke on the Catholic side were 
Catholic princes completely obedient. For the Pope's 
pretentions to deprive kings and dispose of kingdoms 
were only believed in by the clergy. No secular sovereign 
in Europe admitted a right which reduced him to the 
position of a Pope's vassal. Philip held that he suffi- 
ciently discharged his own duties in repressing heresy 
among his own subjects without interfering with his 
neighbors. Elizabeth was as little inclined to help 
Dutch and French and Scotch Calvinists. Yet the 
power of princes, even in the sixteenth century, was 
limited, and it rested after all on the goodwill of their 
own people. Common sympathies bound Catholics to 
Catholics and Protestants to Protestants, and every 
country in Europe became a caldron of intrigue and 
conspiracy. Catholics disclaimed allegiance To Prot- 
estant sovereigns, Protestants in Catholic countries 
looked to their fellow- religionists elsewhere to save 
them from stake and sword, and thus between all parties, 
in one form or another, there were perpetual collisions! 
which the forbearance of statesmen alone prevented 
from breaking out into universal war. 

Complete forbearance was not possible. Community 



The Spanish Story of the Armada 

of creed was a real bond which could not be ignored, 
nor in the general uncertainty could princes afford to 
reject absolutely and entirely the overtures made to 
them by each other's subjects. When they could not 
assist they were obliged to humor and encourage. 
Charles the Fifth refused to go to war to enforce the 
sentence of Rome upon Henry the Eighth, but he al- 
lowed his ambassadors to thank and stimulate Cath- 
erine's English friends. Philip was honestly unwilling 
to draw the sword against his sister-in-law, Elizabeth ; 
but he was the secular head of Catholic Christendom, 
bound to the maintenance of the faith. He had been 
titular King of England, and to him the English Catho- 
lics naturally looked as their protector. He had to per- 
mit his De Quadras and his Mendozas to intrigue with 
disaffection, to organize rebellion, and, if other means 
failed, to encourage the Queen's assassination. To hill dan- 
gerous or mischievous individuals was held permissible 
as an alternative for war, or as a means of ending dis- 
turbance. It was approved of even by Sir Thomas More 
in his " Utopia." William the Silent was murdered in the 
Catholic interest. Henri Quatre was murdered in the 
Catholic interest, and any one who would do the same 
to the English Jezebel would be counted to have done 
good service. Elizabeth had to defend herself with such 
resources as she possessed. She could not afford to de- 
mand open satisfaction ; but she could send secret help 
to the Prince of Orange ; she could allow her privateers 
to seize Spanish treasures on the high seas or plunder 
Philip's West Indian cities. She could execute the trait- 
orous priests who were found teaching rebellion in Eng- 
land. Philip in return could let the Inquisition burn 
English sailors as heretics when they could catch them. 
And thus the two nations had drifted on, still nominally 



10 Thi Spanish Story of the Armada 

at peace, and each unwilling to declare open war ; but 
peace each year had become more difficult to preserve, 
and Philip was driven on by the necessities of things io 
some open and decided action. The fate of the Refor- 
mation in Europe turned on the event of a conflict be- 
tween Spain and England. Were England conquered 
ami recovered to the Papacy, it was believed universally 
that first the Low Countries and then Germany won Id 
be obliged to submit. 

Several times a Catholic invasion of England had been 
distinctly contemplated. The Duke of Alva was to have 
tried it. Don John of Austria was to have tried it. 
The Duke of Guise was to have tried it. The nearest 
and latest occasion had been after the Conquest of Por- 
tugal and the great defeat of the French at the Azores in 
1583. The Spanish navy was then in splendid condi- 
tion, excited by a brilliant victory, and led by an officer 
of real distinction, Alonzo de Bazan, Marques de Santa 
Cruz. A few English privateers had been in the defeated 
fleet at the battle of Terceira ; and Santa Cruz, with the 
other naval commanders, was eagor to follow up his suc- 
cess and avenge the insults which had been offered for so 
many years to the Spanish flag by the English corsairs. 
France, like all Northern Europe, was torn into factions. 
The Yalois princes were Liberal and anti-Spanish. The 
House of Guise was fanatically Catholic, and too power- 
ful for the Crown to control. Santa Cruz was a diplo- 
matist as well as a seaman. He had his correspondents 
in England. In Guise he had a friend and confederate. 
The plan of action had been secretly arranged. One of 
the many plots was formed for the murder of Elizabeth, 
Santa CYuz and the Spanish navy were to hold the chan- 
nel. Guise was to cross under their protection and land 
an army in Sussex. The Catholics were to rise, set free 



7//< Spanish Story of ilu Armada 11 

Mary Stuart, and make her Queen. This was the scheme. 
The fleet was ready. Guise was ready ; and only Philip's 
permission was waited for. Santa Cruz was a rough old 
sailor, turned of seventy, who meant what he said, and 
his mind plainly. Like his countrymen gen- 
erally, he was tired of seeing his master for ever halting 
on his leaden foot (ptideplomo) ; and on August 9, 1583, 
while still at the Azores, he wrote to stimulate him to 
folh>w up his success by a still more splendid achieve- 
ment. Philip was now master of the Portuguese Em- 
pire. He (Santa Cruz) was prepared, if allowed, to add 
England to his dominions. The Low Countries would 
then surrender, and the Jezebel who had wrought so 
much evil in the world would meet her deserts. 

Now was the time. The troops were ready, the fleet 
was in high condition. Philip talked of exjiense and 
diHieulty. If difficulty was an objection, the bold ad- 
miral said that nothing grand could ever be achieved ; 
and for money, great princes could find money if they 
wished. The King should have faith in God, whose work 
he would be doing ; and if he was himself permitted to 
try, he promised that he would have as good success as 
in his other enterprises. 

Charles the Fifth, among his other legacies to his son, 
had left him instructions to distrust France and to pre- 
serve the English alliance. The passionate Catholics 
had assured Philip over and over again that the way to 
keep England was to restore the faith. But plot after 
plot had failed, Elizabeth was still sovereign, and Catho- 
lic conspiracies so far had only brought their leaders to 
the scaffold. Mary Stuart was a true believer, but she 
was herself half a Frenchwoman, and Guise's father had 
defeated Philip's father at Metz, and Guise and Mary 
masters of France and England both was a perilous pos- 



12 The Spanish S/or// , Amiada 

sibility. Philip did not assent ; he did not refuse. Ho 
thanked Santa Cruz for his zeal, but said that ho must 
still wail a little ami watch. His waiting did not serve 
to clear his way. Elizabeth discovered what had 
been designed for her, and as a return Sir Francis 
Drake sacked St. Domingo and Carthagena. More than 
that, she ha J sent open help to his insurgent provinces, 
and had taken charge, with the consent of the Hol- 
landers, of Flushing and Brill. Santa Cruz could not 
but admire the daring of Drake and the genius of the 
English Queen. They were acting while his own master 
was asleep. He tried again to rouse him. The Queen, 
he said, had made herself a name in the world. She 
had enriched her own subjects out of Spanish spoil. In 
a single month they had taken a million and a half of 
ducats. Defensive war was always a failure. Once 
more the opportunity was his own. France was 
paralyzed, and Elizabeth, though strong abroad, was 
weak at home, through the disaffection of the Catholics. 
To delay longer would be to see England grow into a 
power which he would be unable io deal with. Spain 
would decline, and would lose iu znere money more than 
four times the cost of war.* 

This time Philip listened more seriously. Before, ho 
had been invited to act with the Duke of Guise, and 
Guise was to have the spoils. Now, at any rate, the lead 
in the campaign was to be his own. He bade Santa 
Cruz send him a plan of operations and a calculation in 
detail of the ships and stores which would be required. 
He made him Lord High Admiral, commissioned him to 
collect squadrons at Cadiz and Lisbon, take them to sea, 
and act against the English as he saw occasion. Santa 
Cruz would probably have been allowed his way to do 
* Santa Cruz to Philip the Second, January 13, 15S6. 



The Spanish Story of the Armada 13 

what he pleased in the following }'ear but for a new 
complication, which threw Philip again into perplexity. 
] object of any enterprise led by Santa Cruz would 
have been the execution of the Bull of Pope Pius, the 
dethronement of Elizabeth, and the transference of the 
crown to Mary Stuart, who, if placed on the throne by 
Spanish arms alone, might be relied on to he true to 
Spanish interests. Wearied out with Mary's perp 
plots, Elizabeth, when Santa Cruz's preparations were 
far advanced, sent her to the scaffold, and the blow of 
I se which < r disconcerted every arrange! 

which had been made. There was no longer a Catholic 
: iccessor in England to whom the crown could go on 
Elizabeth'.- deposition, and it was useless to send an 
army to conquer the country till some purpose could be 
formed for disposing of it afterward. Philip had been 
called King of England once. He wars of the blood of 
the House of Lancaster. He thought, naturally, that if 
he was to do the work, to him the prize should belong. 
Unfortunately, the rest of the world claimed a voice in 
the matter. France would certainly be hostile. The 
English Catholics were divided. The Pope himself, when 
consulted, refused his assent. As Pope Sextus the 
Fifth, he was bound to desire the reduction of a rebel- 
lious island ; as an Italian prince, he had no wish to see 
another wealthy kingdom added to the enormous empire 
of Spain. Mary Stuart's son was natural heir. He was 
a Protestant, but gratitude might convert him. At any 
rate, Philip was not to take Elizabeth's place. Sextus 
was to have given a million crowns to the cost of the 
armament ; he did not directly withdraw his promise, 
but he haggled with the Spanish Ambassador at the Holy 
See. He affected to doubt the possibility of Philip's 
success, and even his personal sincerity. He declined 



14 The Qpani* Story o/ ^ ^^ 

to advance a ducat till a Sromiaii „ 
English so* The p"4e " p1 ™ y T S aCtUaUy ° D 
from Flanders and couZctikel "^ to C1 '° SS 

itself, was diffident, if St^TXS^W 
feel that even the successful occupaHon o W P ° 

prove the beginning of greater ZZ° ^Zu" 
•Wn forward himself against his indtitiof Th ehT'f 
movers m the enterprise, those who hadW « . 
religions animosity through E»mn! , " °' 

rational arranged ^^1^ ZZut 
«abo ns were the Society of Jesus, t o e memoe^'o "t 

From them came Hip Pn i y ° f rene S^es. 

-jf came tne endless conspiracies wlnVl, q,. ■ 

Philips ears; and Philip, half a bio . ot 4, f ed in 

Tm n . . * 8 weaiy ot the long- stru<mle j n f i,_ 
Low Countries, which threatened to be endless tf F 
beth supported it. Elizabeth herself Z^to^l 
w quiet, relieved of the necessity of ■ ■ 

«ent Protects and 1^^ ™£ 

sr ™ possiMe ' "-* °° «- - ~ 

Catholics were showed X£ ££.* » «» 

exiles sts « " ~ 



The Spanish Story of the Armada 15 

States. Elizabeth was perfectly ready to tolerate Cath- 
olic worship if the Catholics would cease their plots 
ao-aiust her and Spain would cease to encourage them. 
It was true that Flushing and Brill had been trusted to 
her chai-e by the States, and that if she withdrew her 
oarrison°she was bound in honor to replace them in 
the States' hands. But she regarded the revolt 01 the 
Low Countries as only justified by the atrocities of the 
Blood Council and the Inquisition. If she could secure 
for the Dutch Confederation the same toleration which 
Bhe was willing herself to concede to the English Cath- 
olics she might feel her honor to be acquitted suf- 
ficiently, and might properly surrender to Philip towns 
which really were his own. Here only, so far as the two 
sovereigns were concerned, the difficulty lay. Philip 
held himself bound by duty to allow no liberty of re- 
ligion among his own subjects. On the other hand if 
peace was made the Spanish garrisons were to be with- 
drawn from the Low Countries ; the Executive Govern- 
ment would be left in the hands of the States themselves, 
who could be as tolerant practically as they pleased. On 
these terms it was certain that a general pacification was 
within reach. The Prince of Parma strongly advised it. 
Philip himself wished for it. Half Elizabeth's Council 
recommended it, and she herself wished for it. Unless 
Catholics and Protestants intended to fight till one or 
the other was exterminated, they must come to some 
such terms at last; and if at last, why not at once? 
With this purpose a conference was being held at Ostend 
between Elizabeth's and Parma's commissioners, lne 
terms were rational. The principal parties, it is now 
possible to see-even Philip himself-were sincere about 
it How long the terms of such a peace would have 
lasted, with the theological furnace at such a heat, may 



16 The Spanish Story Armada 

be fairly questioned. Bigotry and freedom of thought 
had two centuries of battle still before them till it could 
be seen which was to prevail. But an arrangement 
might then have been come to al Ostend, in the winter 
of 1 587 8, which would have lasted Philip's and I 
beth's lifetime, could either party have trusted the 
other. In both countries there was a fighting party and 
a peace party. In England it was said that the ne- 
gotiations were a fraud, designed only to induce Eliza- 
beth to relax her preparations for defence. In Spain it 
was urged that the larger and more menacing the force 
which could be collected, the more inclined Elizabeth 
would be to listen to reason ; while Elizabeth had to 
show on her part that frightened she was not. and that 
if Philip preferred war she had no objection. The bold- 
er her bearing, the more likely she would be to secure 
fair terms for the Hollanders. 

The preparations of Cadiz and Lisbon w< re no secret. 
All Europe was talking of the enormous armament which 
Spain was preparing, and which Santa Cruz was to con- 
voy to the English Channel. Both the Tagns ami Cadiz 
Harbor were reported to be crowded with ships, though 
as yet unprovided with crews for them. With some mis- 
givings, but in one of her bolder moments, the Queen 
in the Spring of 15S7 allowed Drake to take a living 
squadron with him down the Spanish coast. She hung 
about his neck a second in command to limit his move- 
ments : but Drake took his own way. having his vice- 
admiral to go home and complain. He sailed into Cadiz 
Harbor, burnt eighteen galleons which were lying- 
there, ami, remaining leisurely till he had finished his 
work, sailed away, intending to repeat the operation at 
; 3 in. It might have been done with the same ease. 
The English squadron lay at the mouth of the river 



The Spanish Story of tlu Armada 17 

within sight of Santa Cruz, and the great admiral had to 
git still and fame, unable to go out and meet him por 
falta de gente — for want of sailors to man his galleons. 
Drake might have gone in and burnt them all, and would 
have 'lone, it had uot Elizabeth felt that he had accom- 
plished enough and that the uegotiations would be broken 
off if he worked more destruction. He had singed the 
King's beard, as he called it; and tho King, though 
patient of affronts was moved to a passing emotion. Sea- 
men and soldiers were hurried down to the Tagus. 
Orders were sent to the Admiral to put to sea at once 
and chase the English off tbe shore. But Philip, too, 
on his side was afraid of Santa Cruz's too great au- 
dacity. He, too, did not wish for a collision which 
might make peace impossible. Another order followed. 
The fleet was to stay where it was and to continue its 
preparations. It was to wait till the next spring, when 
the enterprise should be undertaken in earnest if the 
peace conference at Ostend should fail in finding a con- 
clusion. 

Tims the winter drove through. Peace perhaps was 
no! really possible, however sincerely the high contract- 
ing parties might themselves desire if. Public opinion 
in Spain would have compelled Philip to leave the con- 
queror of Terceira in command of the expedition. Santa 
Cruz would have sailed in March for the English Chan- 
nel, supported by officers whom he had himself trained ; 
and, although the Armada might still have failed, history 
would have had another tale to tell of its exploits and 
its fate. Put a visible coldness had grown up between 
the King and the Admiral. Philip, like many men of 
small minds raised into great positions, had supreme 
confidence in his own powers of management. He 
chose to regulate everything, to the diet and daily hab- 
2 



18 The Spanish Story of the Armada 

its of every sailor and soldier on board. He intended 
to direct and limit the action of the Armada even when 
out and gone to its work. He had settled perhaps in 
his own mind that, since he could not himself he King 
of England, the happiest result for him would be to 
leave Elizabeth where she was, reduced to the condition 
of his vassal, which she would become if she consented 
to his terms ; and with the presence of an overpowering 
fleet in the Channel, a moderate but not too excessive 
use of force, an avoidance of extreme and violent meas- 
ures, which would make the strife internecine and make 
an arrangement hopeless, he conceived that he could 
bring Elizabeth to her knees. For such a purpose Santa 
Cruz was not the most promising instrument ; he re- 
quired some one of more malleable material who would 
obey his own instructions, and would not be led either 
by his own ambition or the enthusiasm and daring of 
his officers into desperate adventures. It was probably, 
therefore, rather to his relief than regret that in Feb- 
ruary, when the Armada was almost ready to sail, the 
old Admiral died at Lisbon. Santa Cruz was seventy- 
three years old. He had seen fifty years of service. 
Spanish tradition, mourning at the fatal consequence, 
said afterward that he had been broken-hearted at the 
King's hesitation. Auxiety for the honor of his count ry 
might have worn out a younger man. He came to his end, 
and with him went the only chance of a successful issue of 
the expedition. He was proud of his country, which he 
saw that Philip was degrading. The invasion of England 
had beet) his dream for years, and he had correspond- 
ents of his own in England and Ireland. He was the 
ablest seaman that Spain possessed, and had studied 
Jong the problems with which he would have had to 
deal. Doubtless he had left men behind anion of those 



The Spanish Story of the Armada 19 

who had served under him who could have taken his 
place, and have done almost as well. Bat Philip had 
determined that, since the experiment was to be made, 
he would himself control it from his room in the Escu- 
rial, and in his choice of Santa Cruz's successor he 
showed that naval capacity and patriotic enthusiasm 
were the last qualities for which he was looking. 

Don Alonzo de Guzman, Duke of Medina Sidonia, was 
the richest peer in Spain. He was now thirty-eight 
years old and his experience as a public man was 
limited to his failure to defend Cadiz against Drake. He 
was a short, broad shouldered, olive-complexioned man, 
said to be a good rider ; but, if his wife was to be 
believed, he was of all men in Spain the least fitted to be 
trusted with the conduct of any critical undertaking. 
The Duchess, Dona Ana de Mendoza, was the daughter 
of Philip's Minister, Ruy Gomez, and of the celebrated 
Princess of Eboli, whom later scandal called Philip's 
mistress, and whose attractions were supposed to have 
influenced Philip in favor of her son-in-law. Royal 
scandals are dreary subjects. When they are once ut- 
tered the stain is indelible, for everyone likes to believe 
them. The only contemporary witness for the amours 
of Philip and the Princess of Eboli is Antonio Perez, who, 
by his own confession, was a scoundrel who deserved 
the gallows. Something is known at last of the history 
of the lady. If there was a woman in Spain whom 
Philip detested, it was the wife of Ruy Gomez. If there 
was a man whom the Princess despised, it was the 
watery-blooded King. An intrigue between a wild-cat 
of the mountain and a narrow-minded, conscientious 
sheep-dog would be about as probable as a love-affair 
between Philip and the Princess of Eboli ; and at the 
time of her son-in-law's appointment she was locked up 



2 I The Spanish Story of the Armada 

in a castle in defiant disgrace. The Duke had been 
married to her daughter when he was twenty-two and 
his bride was eleven, and Dona Ana, after sixteen years' 
experience of him, had observed to her friends that he 
was well enough in his own house among persons who 
did not know what he was ; but that if he was employed 
on business of State the world would discover to its cost 
his real character. That such a man should have been 
chosen to succeed Alouzo de Bazau astonished everyone. 
A commander of Gold, it was said, was taking the place 
of a commander of Iron. The choice was known to 
Santa Cruz while he still breathed, and did not comfort 
him in his departure. 

The most astonished of all, when he learnt the honor 
which was intended for him, was the Duke himself, and 
he drew a picture of his own incapacity as simple as 
Sancho's when appointed to govern his island. 

"My health is bad," he wrote to Philip's secretary, 
" and from my small experience of the water I know 
that I am always sea-sick. I have no money which I 
can spare. I owe a million ducats, and I have not a real 
to spend on my outfit. The expedition is on such a scale 
and the object is of such high importance that the per- 
son at the head of it ought to understand navigation and 
sea-tight ing, and I know nothing of either. I have net 
one of those essential qualifications. I have no ac- 
quaintances among the officers who are to serve under 
me. Santa Cruz had information about the state of 
things in England ; I have none. Were I competent 
otherwise, I should have to act in the dark by the opinion 
of others, and I cannot tell to whom I may trust. The 
Adelantado of Castile would do better than I. Our 
Lord Mould help him, for he is a good Christian and 
has fought in naval battles. If you send me, depend 



The Spanish Story of the Armada 21 

upon it, I shall Lave a bad account to render of my 
trust." * 

The Duchess, perhaps, guided her husband's hand 
when he wrote so faithful an account of himself. But 
his vanity was flattered. Philip persisted that he must 
go. He and only he would answer the purpose in view, 
so he allowed himself to be persuaded. 

" Since your Majesty still desires it, after my confes- 
sion of incompetence," he wrote to Philip, "I will try to 
deserve your confidence. As I shall be doing God's 
work, I may hope that He will help me." 

Philip gratefully replied : " You are sacrificing your- 
self for God's service and mine. I am so anxious, that 
if I was less occupied at home I would accompany the 
fleet myself, and I should be certain that all would go 
well. Take heart ; you have now an opportunity of 
showing the extraordinary qualities which God, the 
author of all good, has been pleased to bestow upon 
you. Happen what may, I charge myself with the care 
of your children. If you fail, you fail ; but the cause 
being the cause of God, you will not fail." 

Thus the Duke was to command the Armada and to 
sail at the earliest possible moment, for the Commis- 
sioners were sitting at Ostend, and his presence in the 
Channel was of pressing consequence. Santa Cruz be- 
sides had fixed on the end of March as the latest date 
for the departure, on account of the north winds which 
later in the season blow down the coast of Portugal. 
The Duke at the time of his nomination was at his house 
at San Lucar. He was directed to repair at once to 
Lisbon, where his commission would reach him. An 
experienced but cautious Admiral, Don Diego Flores De 

* Medina Sidonia to Secretary Idiaqucz, Feb. 16, 1588. Duro, voL 
i. 414. 



22 The Spanish Story of the Armada 

ValJcz, was assigned to him as nautical adviser, and 
Philip proceeded to inflict upon him a series of instruc- 
tions and advice as wise and foolish as those with which 
Don Quixote furnished his squire. Every day brought 
fresh letters as suggestions rose in what Philip called 
his mind. Nothing was too trifling for his notice, noth- 
ing was to be left to the Duke's discretion which could 
possibly be provided for. In a secret despatch to the 
Prince of Parma, the King revealed alike his expecta- 
tions and his wishes. He trusted that the appearance of 
the Armada and some moderate victory over the English 
fleet would force Elizabeth to an agreement. If the 
Catholic religion could be tolerated in England, and 
if Flushing and Brill were given up to him, he said 
that he was prepared to be satisfied. To Medina 
Sidonia he reported, as his latest advice from England, 
that the Queen was inclining to the treaty, but was dis- 
suaded by Leicester and "Walsingham, and he gave him 
a list of the English forces which he might expect to 
meet, which was tolerably accurate and far inferior to 
his own. 

So far Philip wrote like a responsible and sensible 
prince, but the smallest thing and the largest seemed to 
occupy him equally. He directed the Duke to provide 
himself with competent Channel pilots, as if this was a 
point which might be overlooked. He laid down regu- 
lations for the health of the crews, he fixed himself the 
allowances of biscuit aud wine, salt fish and bacon. 
Beyond all he charged the Duke to attend to their 
morals. They were in the service of the Lord, and the 
Lord must not be offended by the faults of his instru- 
ments. The clergy throughout Spain were praying for 
them and would continue to pray, but soldiers and 
sailors must do their part and live like Christians. They 



The Spanish Story of the Armada 23 

must not swear ; they must not gamble, which led to 
swearing. If they used low language God would be 
displeased. Every man before he embarked must con- 
fess and commend himself to the Lord. Especially and 
pre-eminently, loose women must be kept away, and if 
any member of the expedition fell into the pecado 
ne/ando he must be chastised to the example of the rest. 
This was well enough, also, but from morals the King 
wont next to naval details, of which he could know 
nothing. He had heard, he said, that the gentlemen 
adventurers wanted state-rooms and private berths. It 
would encumber the ships, and the Duke was not to 
allow it. As the Duke was ignorant of navigation, the 
King held himself competent to instruct. He was to 
make straight for the English Channel, advance to the 
North Foreland, and put himself in communication with 
Parma. If foul weather came and the ships were scat- 
tered, they were to collect again, first at Finisterre, and 
then at the Scilly Isles. In the Channel he must keep 
on the English side, because the water was deeper there. 
Elizabeth's fleet, Philip understood, was divided, part 
being under Drake at Plymouth, and part in the Straits 
of Dover. If the Duke fell in with Drake he was to 
take no notice of him unless he was attacked, and was to 
keep on his course. If he found the two squadrons 
united, he would still bo in superior force and might 
join battle, being careful to keep to windward. 

There were limits even to Philip's confidence in his 
ability to guide. He admitted that he could not direct 
the Duke specifically how to form the ships for an 
engagement. Time and opportunity would have to 
determine. " Only," he said, " omit no advantage and 
so handle the fleet that one part shall support another. 
The enemy will try to fight at a distance with his guns. 



24: The Spanish Story of the Armada 

You will endeavor to close. You will observe that their 
practice is to shoot low into the hulls rather than into 
the rigging. You will find how to deal with this. Keep 
your vessels together, allow none to stray or go in ad- 
vance. Do not let them hurry in pursuit of prizes after 
a victory. This fault has often caused disaster both on 
sea and land. Conquer first, and then you will have 
spoil enough. The Council of War will order the dis- 
tribution of it. What I am now saying implies that a 
battle will have to be fought ; but if the enemy can be 
got rid of without an action, so much the better. The 
effect will be produced without loss to yourself. Should 
the Prince be able to cross, you will remain with the 
Armada at the mouth of the Thames, lending such 
assistance as you can. Consult with the Prince, and 
land none of your forces without his approval. Remem- 
ber that your only business is to fight at sea. Differ- 
ences between leaders are injurious, and always to be 
avoided. I am confident that you will co-operate cor- 
dially with the Prince as my service demands ; but I 
must charge you to follow these injunctions of mine 
strictly according to the exact words. I have similarly 
directed the Prince on his own conduct, and if you two 
acting together can succeed in your undertaking, there 
will be honor to spare for both of you. You will remain 
at the Thames's mouth till the work is done. You may 
then, if the Prince approves, take in hand Ireland, in 
which case you will leave your Spanish troops with him 
and exchange them for Germans and Italians. You will 
be careful in what you spend. You know how costly 
the Armada has been to me. You will also see that I am 
not cheated in the muster rolls, and that the provisions 
are sound and sufficient. You will watcli the conduct 
of the officers and keep them attentive to their duties. 



The Spanish Story of the Armada 25 

This is all which occurs to me at present. I must leave 
the rest to your own care and prudence, and for any 
further advices which I may have to send you." * 

Much of all this was no doubt reasonable and true. 
But Generals chosen to conduct great enterprises do not 
require to be taught the elements of their duties. That 
Philip thought it necessary to write all these details was 
characteristic both of himself and of the Duke. But it 
was characteristic of Philip also, that he had not made 
up his mind what the fleet was after all to do, or what 
he himself wished it to do. The first set of instructions 
was followed by a second, addressed both to the Duke 
and the Prince of Parma. The original purpose was 
that the fleet should make its way to the North Foreland. 
Parma was to use its presence in the channel, to cross 
at once with the army, advance to London and take pos- 
session of the Government, where, in conjunction with 
Cardinal Allen and the Catholic Nobles, he was to restore 
the authority of the Koman Church. This, however, im- 
plied that the English squadrons should have been first 
destroyed, or driven off the sea into their harbors. It 
was possible, as Philip foresaw, that the victory at sea 
might be less complete. He assumed that the English 
would be overmatched, but they were bold and skilful, 
and, even if defeated, might be left in a condition to be 
troublesome. The passage of the army might in that 
case be dangerous ; and Parma was left on his own re- 
sponsibility to resume the negotiations at Ostend. Me- 
dina Sidonia was to gain and fortify the Isle of Wight, 
and the presence of the Armada in the Solent was to be 
used as an instrument to extort favorable terms from 
Elizabeth's Government. It would be no longer possible 
* Philip the Second to the Duke of Medina Sidonia, April 1. Duro, 
vol. ii. pp- 5-13. 



26 



Spanish Story of (he Armada 



to demand the restoration of Catholicism in England, 
but the free exorcise of the Catholic religion was to be 
insisted on. As the first point, and for the sake of the 
toleration of the Catholics, Philip would be willing to 

abandon his claim to compensation for the plundering 
expeditions of Francis Drake. The next condition was 
to be the restoration to the King of the towns which 
Elizabeth held in the Low Countries. It was possible 
that, before consenting, the Queen would demand the 
same liberty of religion for the Protestants of the Lou- 
Countries which she was required to grant to her own 
Catholics. To this, however, Parma was in no ease to 
consent. The English might argue that the Huguenots 
were tolerated under the Edicts in France. Parma was 
to answer that the example was not to the point, that 
the King, at any rate, would not give way. The Isle ot 
Wight would be in his own hands. The fleet would be 
safe in the Solent. Other fortresses could be seized along 
the coast, and Elizabeth would be force,! to consent to a 
peace, under which she would be virtually reduced into 
the position of Philip's vassal. 

Accidents, however, might happen, and the Prince of 
Parma also was perplexed with minute conditional in- 
structions. 

Disaster it is evident that Philip did not anticipate. 
Something less than complete success he probably did 
anticipate, ami on the whole might prefer it. Satisfied 
with having provided for all contingencies, he was now 
only anxious to see the Armada on its way. The nuns 
and hermits, meanwhile, had removed the alarms of 
Medina Sidonia, had convince,! him that God could not 
neglect a business in which lie was so peculiarly con- 
cerned, and that, in the tine language of theological 
knight-errantry, the service which he was to execute had 



The Spanish Story of the Armada 27 

been specially reserved by Providence for the King to 

achieve.* 

Such thoughts and such experiences were doubtless 
indications of a high-wrought frame of mind ; but men 
may dwell too exclusively on the conviction that God is 
on their side, and perhaps forget that God will not bo 
found there if they neglect to do their own parts. While 
the priests were praying and the King and the Duke 
were calculating on the Divine assistance, they were 
omitting, all of them, the most obvious precautions by 
which moderate success could be looked for. Santa 
Cruz had reported that the fleet was almost ready to 
sail. The stores of provisions had been laid in while ho 
was still alive, and the water-casks had been tilled. But 
after his death there was no responsible person left in 
Lisbon to see to anything. Great naval expeditions 
were nothing new in Spain. The West Indies and Mex- 
ico and Peru had not been conquered by men in their 
sleep ; and what ships and ships' crews required for 
dangerous voyages was as well understood at Lisbon and 
Cadiz as in any harbor in the world. But the Armada 
was surrounded by a halo of devout imagination which 
seemed to paralyze all ordinary sense. It was to have 
sailed in March, but, even to the inexperienced eye of 
Medina Sidonia when he arrived at his command, the 
inadequacy of the preparations was too obvious. The 
casks of salt meat were found to be putrefying ; the 
water in the tanks had not been renewed, and had stood 
for weeks, growing foul and poisonous under the hot 
Lisbon sun. Sparc rope, spare spars, spare anchors- 
all were deficient. The powder-supply was short. The 

* "T que lo tiene guardado 6, V. Md. para que por BU mano y con 
bu gran zelo y christiandad, se reduzca aquel Regno al gremio y 
obedk'iieia do su Iglcsia." Medina Sidonia to Philip, April 11. 



23 Tli< \ s/i Story y Armada 

balls were short. The contractors had cheated as au- 
daciously as if they had been mere heretics, and the 

soldiers and mariners so little liked the look of things 
that they were deserting in hundreds, while the muster- 
masters drew pay for the full numbers and kept it. In- 
stead of sailing in March, as he had been ordered, the 
Duke was obliged to send to Madrid a long list of in- 
dispensable necessaries, without which he could not 
sail at all. Nothing had been attended to save the state 
of the men's souls, about which the King had been so 
peculiarly anxious. They at any rate had been sent to 
confession, had received each his ticket certifying that 
he had been absolved, and had duly commended him- 
self to the Lord. The loose women had been sent away, 
the cards and dice prohibited, the moral instructions 
punctually complied with. All the rest had been left 
to chance and villainy. The short powder-supply was 
irremediable. The Duke purchased a few casks from 
merchant ships, but no more was to be had. For the 
the King wrote letters, and the Duke, according to 
his own account, worked like a slave, and the worst de- 
fects were concealed if not supplied. Not, however, till 
the end of April were the conditions advanced sufficient- 
ly for the presentation of the standard, and even then 
the squadron from Andalusia had not arrived. 

All was finished at last, or at any rate seemed so. The 
six squadrons were assembled under their respective 
commanders. Men and officers were on board, and 
sailing orders, addressed to every member of the expe- 
dition, were sent round, in the Duke's name, to the 
.1 ships, which, remembering the fate io which all 
these men were being consigned by their crusading en- 
thusiasm, we cannot read without emotion. 

'•From highest to lowest vou are to understand the 



The Spanish Story of the Armada 29 

object of our expo Jit ion, which is to recover countries 
to the Church now oppressed by the enemies of the 
true faith. I therefore beseech you to remember your 
calling, so that God may be with' us in what we do. I 
charge you. one and all, to abstain from profane oaths 
dishonoring to the nanus of our Lord, our Lady, and 
the Saints. All personal quarrels are to be suspended 
while the expedition lasts, and for a month after it is 
completed. Neglect of this will be held as treason. 
Each morning at sunrise the ship boys, according to 
custom, shall sing 'Good Morrow' at the foot of the 
mainmast,* and at sunset the 'Ave Maria.' Since had 
weather may interrupt the communications, the watch- 
word is laid down for each day in the week: Sunday, 
Jesus; the days succeeding, the Holy Ghost, the Holy 
Trinity, Santiago, the Angels. All Saints, and our Lady. 
At sea. every evening, each ship shall pass with a salute 
under the lee of the Commander-in-Chief, and shall fol- 
low at night the light which he will carry in his stern." 
So, as it were, singing its own dirge, the doomed 
Armada went upon its way, to encounter the arms and 
the genius of the new era, unequally matched with un- 
believers. On May 14 it dropped down the river to 
Belem, and lay there waiting for a wind. A brief ac- 
count may here be given of its composition and its chief 
leaders. The Meet consisted of a hundred and thirty 
ships. Seven of them were over a thousand tons and 
sixtv-seven over five hundred. They carried two thou- 
sand live hundred guns, chiefly small, however — four, 
six, and nine pounders. Spanish seamen understood 
little of gunnery. Their art in their sea-battles was to 
close and grapple and trust to their strength and cour- 

* "Los pajes segun es costuinluc daran loa br.cnos dias al pi£ del 
mastil major." 



30 Tftt Spanish S:::\. 

age in hand-to-hand figl I. a _e for the trine as 

- rcrowded. S - 

- sa 3, - volunteers] riests,.surg 

ley-slaves, amounted, accord . s, to nearly 

thousand men. The a iers were the fines 
Euro-. - Id trained hands, wl 

their trade un S fca Cruz. They were divide I 
six squadrons, each with its Vice- Admiral and Capitana, 
or llag-ship. T i Duke carried his standard in th< S . 
Martin, of the squadron of Portugal. si vessel in 

the service, ' -■ S . iards thought, in the world. 
The other five, of Bis . Castile, Andalusia. Guypuscoa, 
lie Levant, were led by distinguished officers. There 
was but one commander in the fleet entirely ig 
his duties, though he. unfortunately, was Commander-in- 
Chief. 

As the names of these officers recur frequently in the 
account of what followed., some description may be 
of each. 

The Vice-Admiral of the Biscay squadron was Juan 
Martinez de Recalde, a native of Bilbao, an old, batl 
sea-warrior, who had fought and served in all parts of 
the ocean. He knew Ireland ; he knew the Channel; he 
had been in the great battle at Terceira, and in the 
opinion of the service was second only to Santa i. 
His dag-ship was Santa Ana. a galleon of eight hundred 
tons ; he sailed himself in the Gran Grin, of eleven hun- 
dred ; so far fortunate, if anyone in the expedition could 
be called fortunate, for the Santa Ana was disabled in a 
storm at the mouth of the Channel. 

The leaders of the squadrons of Castile and And.' - . 

two cousins. Hon Pedro and Don Diego de Valdez. 

Don Diego, whom Philip had chosen for the Duke's 

mentor, was famous as a naval architect, had been on 



The Spanish Story of the Armada 31 

exploring expeditions, and had made a certain reputation 
for himself. He was a jealous, suspicious, cautious kind 
of man, and Philip had a high opinion of him. Don 
Pedro was another of the heroes of Terceira, a rough, 
bold seaman, scarred in a hundred actions with English 
corsairs, and between the two kinsmen there was neither 
resemblance Dor affection. Don Pedro's misfortune in the 
Channel, which will soon be heard of, brought him more 
honor than Don Diego earned by his timidity. He lived 
long after, and was for eight years Governor of Cuba. 
where the Castle of theMoro at llavannah still stands as 
his monument. Two other officers deserve peculiar men- 
tion : Miguel de Oquendo, who sailed in the Seiiora do 
la Rosa, of Guypuscoa, and Alonzo de Leyva, who had 
a ship of his own, the Rata Coronada. Oquendo's career 
had been singularly distinguished. He had been the 
terror of the Turks in the Mediterranean. At Terceira, 
at a critical point in the action, he had rescued Santa 
Cruz when four French vessels were alongside of him. 
lie had himself captured the French Admiral's flag-ship, 
carrying her by boarding, and sending his own flag to 
her masthead above the smoke of the battle. He was an 
excellent seaman besides, and managed his ship, as was 
said, as easily as a horse. Alonzo de Leyva held no 
special command beyond his own vessel ; but he had 
been named by Philip to succeed Medina Sidonia in case 
of misadventure. With him. and under his special 
charge, were most of the high-born adventurous youths 
who had volunteered for the crusade. Neither he nor they 
were ever to see Spain again, but Spanish history ought 
not to forget him, and ought not to forget Oquendo. 

Of priests and friars there were a hundred and eighty ; 
of surgeons, doctors, and their assistants, in the entire 
fleet, not more than eighty-five. The numbers might have 



32 The Spanish Storey of the Armada 

been reversed with advantage. Among the adventurers 
one only may be noted particularly, the poet Lope de 
Vega, then smarting from disappointment in a love-affair, 
and seeking new excitement. 

Meanwhile, the winds were unpropitious. For four- 
teen days the fleet lay at anchor at the mouth of the 
Tagus unable to get away. They weighed at last on 
May 28, and stood out to sea ; but a northerly breeze 
drove them to leeward, and they could make no progress, 
while almost instantly on their sailing the state of the 
stores was brought to light. The water bad been 
on board for four months ! the casks were leaking, and 
what was left of it was unfit to drink. The provisions, 
salt meat, cheese, biscuit, were found to be half putrid, 
and a remarkable order was issued to serve out first 
wdiat was in worse condition, that the supplies might 
hold out the longer. As the ships were to keep together, 
the course and speed were necessarily governed by those 
which sailed the worst. The galleous, high built, and 
with shallow draught of water, moved tolerably before 
the wiucl, but were powerless to work against it. The 
north wind freshened. They were carried down as low 
as Cape St. Vincent, standing out and in, and losing 
ground on each tack. After a fortnight's labor they were 
only in the latitude of Lisbon again. Tenders were sent 
in every day to Philip, with an account of their prog- 
ress. Instead of being in the mouth of the Channel, 
the Duke had to report that he could make no way at 
all, and, far worse than that, the entire ships' companies 
were on their way to being poisoned. Each provision 
cask which was opened was found worse than the last. 
The biscuit was mouldy, the meat and fish stinking, the 
water foul and breeding dysentery. The crews and com- 
panies were loud in complaint ; the officers had lost 



The Spanish Story of the Armada 33 

heart, and the Duke, who at starting bad been drawing 
pictures in bis imagination of glorious victories, bad al- 
ready begun to lament bis weakness in having accepted 
the command. He trusted God would help him, he said. 
He wished no harm to anyone. He had left his quiet, 
and his home, and his children, out of pure love to his 
Majesty, and he hoped his Majesty would remember it.* 
The state of the stores was so desperate, especially of 
the water, that it was held unsafe to proceed. The pilots 
said that tbey must put into some port for a fresh sup- 
ply. The Duke feared that if he consented the men, in 
their present humor, would take the opportunity and 
desert. 

At length, on June 10, after three weeks of ineffectual 
beating up and down, the wind shifted to the south- 
west, and the fleet could be laid upon its course. The 
anxiety was not much diminished. The salt meat, salt 
fish, and cheese were found so foul throughout that 
they were thrown overboard for fear of pestilence, and 
the rations were reduced to biscuit and weevils. A de- 
spatch was hurried off to Philip tbat fresh stores must 
instantly be sent out, or there would be serious disaster. 
Tbe water was the worst of all, as when drunk it pro- 
duced instant diarrhoea. On June 13 matters mended 
a little. Tbe weather had cooled. The southwest wind 
had brought rain. Tbe ships could be aired and puri- 
fied. They were then off Finisterre, and w T ere on a 
straight course for the Channel. Philip's orders had 
been positive that they were not to delay anywhere, that 
they were to hurry on and must not separate. Tbey had 
five hundred men, however, down with dysentery, and 
the number of sick was increasing with appalling 
rapidity. A council was held on board tbe San Martin 
* Medina Sitlonia to Philip the Second, May 30. 
3 



34 The Spanish Story of the Armada 

and the Admirals all agreed that go on they could not. 
Part of the fleet, at least, must make into Ferrol, laud 
the sick, and bring off supplies. The Duke could not 
come to a resolution, but the winds and waves settled 
his uncertainties. On the 19th it came on to blow. The 
Duke, with the Portugal squadron, the galleys and the 
larger galleons made in at once for Corunna, leaving the 
rest to follow, and was under shelter before the worst of 
the gale. The rest were caught outside and scattered. 
They came in as they could, most of them in the next 
few days, some dismasted, some leaking with strained 
timbers, the crews exhausted with illness ; but at the 
end of a week a third part of the Armada was still miss- 
iug, and those which had reached the harbor were 
scarcely able to man their yards. A hospital had to be 
established on shore. The tendency to desert had be- 
come so general that the landing-places were occupied 
with bodies of soldiers. A despatch went off to the 
Escurial, with a despairing letter from the Duke to the 
King. 

" The weather,'' he said, " though it is June, is as wild 
as in December. No one remembers such a season. It 
is the more strange since we are on the business of the 
Lord, and some reason there must be for what has be- 
fallen us. I told your Majesty that I was unfit for this 
command when you asked me to undertake it. I obeyed 
your orders, and now I am here in Corunna with the 
ships dispersed and the force remaining to me inferior 
to the enemy. The crews are sick, and grow daily worse 
from bad food and water. Most of our provisions have 
perished, and we have not enough for more than two 
months' consumption. Much depends on the safety of 
this fleet. You have exhausted your resources to collect 
it, and if it is lost you may lose Portugal and the Indies. 



The Spanish Story of the Armada 35 

The men are out of spirit. The officers do not under- 
stand their business. We are no longer strong. Do 
not deceive yourself into thinking that Ave are equal to 
the work before us. You remember how much it cost 
you to conquer Portugal, a country adjoining Castile, 
where half the inhabitants were in your favor. We are 
now going against a powerful kingdom with only the 
weak force of the Prince of Parma and myself. I speak 
freely, but I have laid the matter before the Lord ; you 
must decide yourself what is to be done. Recollect only 
how many there are who envy your greatness and bear 
you no good-will." * 

On the 27th thirty-five ships were still absent, and 
nothing had been heard of them. The storm, however, 
after all, had not been especially severe, and it was not 
likely that they were lost. The condition to which the 
rest were reduced was due merely to rascally contract- 
ors and official negligence, and all could easily be re- 
paired by an efficient commander in whom the men had 
confidence. But the Duke had no confidence in himself 
nor the officers in him. Four weeks only had passed 
since he had left Lisbon and he was already despondent, 
and his disquieted subordinates along with him. He 
had written freely to Philip, and advised that the expe- 
dition should be abandoned. He again summoned the 
Vice-Admirals to his cabin and required their opinions. 
Should they or should they not go forward with their 
reduced force ? The Inspector-General, Don George 
Manrique, produced a schedule of numbers. They were 
supposed, he said, to have twenty-eight thousand men 
besides the galley-slaves. Owing to sickness and other 
causes, not more than twenty -two or twenty -three 
thousand could be regarded as effective, and of these sis 

* Medina Si Jonia to Philip the Second from C'crunna, June 24. 



36 The Spanish Story of the Armada 

thousand were in the missing galleons. The Vice-Ad- 
mirals were less easily frightened than their leader. 
None were for giving up. Most of them advised that 
they should wait where they were till the ships came in, 
repairing damages and taking in fresh stores. Pedro 
de Yaldez insisted that they should go on as soon as pos- 
sible. While they remained in harbor fresh meat and 
vegetables might be served out, and the crews would 
soon recover from a sickness which was caused only by 
bad food. With vigor and energy all that was wrong 
could be set right. The missing ships were doubtless 
ahead expecting them, and would be fallen in with some- 
where. 

Don Pedro was addressing brave men, and carried the 
council along with him. He wrote himself to Philip to 
tell him what had passed. " The Duke," he said, " bore 
him no good-will for his advice, but he intended to per- 
sist in a course which he believed to be for his Majesty's 
honor." 

A day or two later the wanderers came back and re- 
stored the Duke's courage. Some had been as far as 
Scilly, some even in Mount's Bay, but none had been 
lost and none had been seriously injured. The fresh 
meat was supplied as the Don Pedro advised. The sick 
recovered ; not one died, and all were soon in health 
again. Fresh supplies were poured down out of the 
country. The casks were refilled with pure water. In 
short, the sun began to shine once more, and the de- 
spondency fit passed away. Philip wrote kindly and cheer- 
ily. " Everything would be furnished which they could 
want. The Duke might spend money freely and need 
spare nothing to feed the men as they ought to be fed. 
If they had met with difficulties in the beginning they 
would have greater glory in the end. There were diffi- 



The Spcmish Story of the Armada 37 

culties in every enterprise. They must overcome them 
and go on." The Duke still hesitated. He said truly 
enough that other things were wanting besides food : 
powder, cordage, and the thousand minor stores which 
ought to have been provided and were not. But the 
rest of the chief officers were now in heart again, and 
he found himself alone ; Recalde only, like a wise 
man, begging Philip to modify his instructions and al- 
low him to secure Plymouth or Dartmouth on their ad- 
vance, as, although they might gain a victory, it was 
unlikely to be so complete as to end the struggle, and 
they might require a harbor to shelter the fleet. 

Philip, unfortunately for himself, paid no attention to 
Recalde's suggestion, but only urged them to begone at 
their best speed. The ships were laid on shore to be 
scraped and tallowed. The gaps in the crews were filled 
up with fresh recruits. Another ship was added, and at 
the final muster there were a hundred and thirty-one 
vessels, between seven and eight thousand sailors and 
seventeen thousand infantry, two thousand slaves, and 
fourteen hundred officers, priests, gentlemen, and ser- 
vants. With restored health and good-humor they 
were again commended to the Lord. Tents were set up 
on an island in the harbor, with an altar in each and 
friars in sufficient number to officiate. The ship's com- 
panies were landed and brought up man by man till the 
whole of them had again confessed and again received 
the Sacrament. 

'"'This," said the Duke, "is great riches, and the most 
precious jewel which I carry with me. They now are all 
well, and content, and cheerful." 



38 The Spanish Story of tJie Armada 



n. 

Two months of summer were still left when the Ar- 
mada made its second start out of Corunna on Friday, 
July 2'2. with fresh heart and better provision. On the 
23d the last vessel in the fleet had passed Cape Ortega^ 
and the wind, as if to make amends for past persecution, 
blew fair and moderate from the south. Saturday, Sun- 
day, and Monday the galleons swept easily along across 
the Bay of Biscay, and on the Monday night, the 25th, 
the Duke found himself with all his flock about him at 
the mouth of the English Channel. Tuesday broke 
calm and cloudy, with a draft of northerly air. Heavy 
showers fell. One of the galleys had sprung a leak, and 
was obliged to go home. On Wednesday the wind 
backed to the west, and rose into a gale, blowing hard 
with a high sea. The waves broke into the stern gal- 
leries of the galleons, and the fleet was hove to. On 
Friday the storm was over, but there was still a long, 
heavy roll. The ships were unmanageable, and from 
the maintop of the San Martin forty sail were again not 
to be seen. The remaining galleys, finding that in such 
weather they were like to be swamped, had made away 
for the coast of France ; the Santa Ana, the Capitana of 
the Biscay squadron, had disappeared completely, and 
was supposed to have been sunk. She had in fact lost 
her reckoning, and at last found her way into Havre. 
The rest of the missing ships proved only to be a few 
miles ahead. After a slight flutter, the Armada, shorn 
of its galleys and the Santa Ana, was again complete, 
and with the sky clearing from southwest went on upon 
its way. As yet they had seen nothing — not a sail or a 



The Spanish Story of the Armada 39 

boat; but being on the enemy's coast they put them- 
selves into fighting order. They were in three divisions. 
The Duke was in the centre with the main battle. Alouzo 
cle Leyva led the advance as the post of honor. The 
rear was under Martinez de Recalde, the formation being 
like an oblique crescent, or like the moon when it lies 
on its back, De Leyva and Recalde being at the two 
horns. 

In this order they sailed slowly on through the day, 
still with nothing in sight, but knowing by observation 
and soundings that they were coming up to land. The 
sun on Friday, at noon, gave them 50 degrees, and the 
lead 56 fathoms. At four in the afternoon the gray 
ridge of the Lizard rose above the sea three leagues off. 
They were now in sight of the den of the dragon which 
they were to come to slay, and Medina Sidonia ran up 
to his masthead a special flag of his own, which had 
been embroidered for the occasion — Christ on the Cross, 
and Our Lady and the Magdalen on either side of Him. 
As the folds unrolled in the breeze, each ship in the fleet 
fired a broadside, and the ships' companies gathered and 
knelt on the deck to give thanks to the Almighty. 

That evening the Duke despatched the last letter to 
the King, which for a month he had leisure to write. So 
far, he said, the enemy had not shown himself, and he 
was going forward in the dark ; no word had come from 
Parma ; before him was only the silent sea, and the long 
line of the Cornish coast, marked at intervals by columns 
of smoke which he knew to be alarm beacons. The sea 
that was so silent would soon be noisy enough. With a 
presentiment of danger, the Duke told the King that 
he must so far disregard his orders that, until Parma 
had communicated with him, he proposed to halt at the 
Isle of Wmht and to so no further. Sail was taken in 



40 The Spanish Story of Hie Armada 

that night Ou the Saturday morning a despatch boat 
was sent away with the letter to the King, and the fleet 
crept on slowly and cautiously. They had hoped to fall 
in with a fishing-smack, but none were to be discovered ; 
nor was it till Saturday night, or rather at one o'clock 
on the Sunday morning, that they were able to gather 
any information at all. At that hour, and not before, a 
pinnace that had gone forward to observe came back 
with four Falmouth fishermen who had been fallen in 
with at sea. From them the Duke and the admirals 
learned that Drake and Howard had come out that morn- 
ing from Plymouth Harbor, and were lying in the Sound, 
or outside it, waiting for them. The burning beacons 
had brought notice on the Friday evening that the 
Armada was in sight, and the English had instantly got 
under way. The Spanish records and diaries say dis- 
tinctly that from these fishermen they had gathered their 
first and only knowledge of the English movements. 
The charge afterward brought against the Duke, there- 
fore, that he had learned that Plymouth was undefended, 
that Oquendo and Eecalde urged him to go in and take 
it, and that he refused and lost the opportunity, is proved 
to be without foundation. Very likely a council of ad- 
mirals did advise that Plymouth should be attacked if 
they found Howard and Drake still in the Sound, for in 
the narrow space the ships would be close together, and 
the superior numbers of the Spaniards and their superioi 
strength in small arms and musketry would be able to 
assert themselves. Medina Sidonia may have agreed, for 
all that anyone can say to the contrary, but the oppor- 
tunity was never allowed him. The English fleet was 
already outside, and the Duke could not enter till he 
had fought an action. 

Au hour after midnight, on the Sunday morning, the 



The Spanish Story of the Armada 41 

Falmouth boatmen gave their information. Four hours 
later, directly off liamheatl, the two fleets were en- 
gaged. The air through the night had been light from 
the west. The water was smooth. At five o'clock, just 
after sunrise, eleven large vessels were seen from the 
deck of the San Martin three miles to leeward, outside 
the Mewstone, manoeuvring to recover the wind, which 
was beginning to freshen. . Forty others were counted 
between the Armada and the hind to the west of the 
Sound. The squadron first seen consisted of the 
Queen's ships under Lord Howard ; the others were 
Drake and the privateers. The breeze rose rapidly. 
The Duke flew the consecrated standard, and signalled 
to the whole fleet to brace round their yards and hold 
the wind between the two English divisions. Howard, 
however, with apparent ease, went on to windward and 
joined Drake. Both of them then stood out to sea be- 
hind the whole Armada, firing heavily into Recalde and 
the rearward Spanish squadron as they passed. Recalde 
tried hard to close, but Sir John Hawkins had intro- 
duced new lines into the construction of the English 
ships. The high castles at poop and stem had been re- 
duced, the length increased, the beam diminished. They 
could sail perhaps within five points of the wind. They 
showed powers, at any rate, entirely new to Recalde, for 
they seemed to be able to keep at any distance which 
they pleased from him. They did not try to break his 
line or capture detached vessels. With their heavy 
guns, which he found to his cost to be of weightier 
metal and to carry farther than his own, they poured 
their broadsides into him at their leisure, and he could 
make no tolerable reply. Alonzo de Leyva and Oquendo, 
seeing that Recalde was suffering severely, went to his 
assistance, but only to experience themselves the effects 



42 The Spanish Story of the Armada 

of tins novel method of naval combat and id aval con- 
struction. To fight at a distance was contrary 1o 
Spanish custom, and was not held worthy of honorable 
men. But it was effective ; it was perplexing, it was 
deadly. The engagement lasted on these conditions 
through the whole Sunday forenoon. The officers of 
the Armada did all that gallant men could achieve. 
They refused to recognize where the English superiority 
lay till it was forced upon them by torn rigging and 
shattered hulls. Becalde's own ship fired a hundred and 
twenty shot, and it was thought a great thing. But the 
English had fired five to the Spanish one, and the effect 
was the greater because, as in Rodney's action at Do- 
minica, the galleons were crowded with troops, among 
whom shot and splinter had worked havoc. The Cas- 
tilians and Biscavans were brave enough ; there were no 
braver men in the world ; but they were in a position 
where courage was of no use to them. They were per- 
plexed and disturbed ; and a gentleman present who 
describes the scene observes that " este dia mostra- 
ronse de neustra Armada algunos officiales medrosos " 
— this day some of the officers of our fleet showed 
cowardice. The allusion was perhaps to the Duke, who 
had looked on and done nothing. 

No prizes were taken. Drake and Howard under- 
stood their business too well to waste life upon single 
captures. Their purpose was to harass, shatter, and 
weaken the entire Armada, as opportunity might offer, 
with the least damage to themselves, till shot and 
weather, and the casualties likely to occur under such 
conditions, had reduced the fleets to something nearer 
to an equality. Tactics so novel baffled the Spaniards. 
They had looked for difficulties, but they had counted 
with certainty on success if they could force the Eng- 



The Spanish Story of the Armada 43 

lisb into a general engagement. No wonder that they 
were unpleasantly startled at the result of the first ex- 
periment. 

The action, if such it could be called when the Armada 
had been but a helpless target to the English guns, lasted 
till four in the afternoon. The southwest wind then 
was blowing up, and the sea was rising. The two fleets 
had by that time driven past the opening into the Sound. 
The Duke could not have gone in if he had tried, nor 
could De Leyva himself, under such circumstances, have 
advised him to try ; so, finding that he could do nothing, 
and was only throwing away life, he signalled from the 
San Martin to bear away up Channel. The misfortunes 
of the day, however, were not yet over. The Spanish 
squadrons endeavored to resume their proper positions, 
De Leyva leading and Kecalde covering the rear. The 
English followed leisurely, two miles behind, and Re- 
calde's own vessel had suffered so much in the engage- 
ment that she was observed to be dropping back, and to 
be in danger of being left alone and overtaken. Pedro 
de Valdez, in the Capitana of the Andalusian squadron, 
one of the finest ships in the fleet, observing his old 
comrade in difficulties, bore up to help him. After such 
a day, the men, perhaps, were all of them disturbed, and 
likely to make mistakes in difficult manoeuvres. In 
turning, the Capitana came into collision with the Santa 
Catalina and broke her own bowsprit ; the fore-topmast 
followed, and the ship became an unmanageable wreck. 
She had five hundred men on board, besides a consid- 
erable part of the money which had been sent for the 
use of the fleet. To desert such a vessel, and desert 
along with it one of the principal officers of the expedi- 
tion, on the first disaster, would be an act of cowardice 
and dishonor not to be looked for in a Spanish noble- 



44 The Spanish Story of the Armada 

man. But night was coming on. To bear up was to 
risk a renewal of the fighting, for which the Duke had 
no stomach. He bore Don Pedro a grudge for having 
opposed him at Corunna, when he had desired to 
abandon the expedition ; Diego Florez, his adviser, had 
also his dislike for Don Pedro, and, to the astonishment 
of everyone, the signal was made that the fleet was not 
to stop, and that Don Pedro was to be left to his fate. 
De Leyva and Oquendo, unable to believe the order to 
be serious, hastened on board the San Martin to protest. 
The Duke hesitated ; Diego Florez, however, said that 
to wait would be to risk the loss of the whole fleet, and by 
Diego Florez Philip had directed the Duke to be guided. 
Boats were sent back to bring off the Capitana's treasure 
and the crew, but in the rising sea boats could do 
nothing. Don Pedro was deserted, overtaken, and of 
course captured, after a gallant resistance. The ship 
was carried into Dartmouth, and proved a valuable prize. 
Besides the money, there was found a precious store of 
powder, which the English sorely needed. Among other 
articles, was a chest of swords, richly mounted, which 
the Duke was taking over to be presented to the English 
Catholic peers. Don Pedro himself was treated with 
the high courtesy which he deserved, to be ransomed at 
the end of a year, and to be spared the ignominy of 
further service under his extraordinary commander-in- 
chief. 

The loss of Don Pedro was not the last, and not the 
worst, calamity of the night. Soon after dark the air 
was shaken and the sky was lighted by an explosion in 
the centre of the Spanish fleet. Oquendo's ship, Our 
Lady of the Kose, was blown up, and two hundred men, 
dead and wounded, were hurled into the sea. The 
wreck that was left was seen to be in a blaze, in which 



The Spanish Story of the Armada 45 

the rest on board were like to perish. Oquendo himself 
was absent. Some said it was an accident, others that 
it had been done by an Englishman in disguise, others 
that there had been some quarrel, and that one of the par- 
ties in a rage had flung a match into the magazine and 
sprung overboard. This time the Armada was rounded 
to ; the burning ship was covered by the main body. 
The money on board, for each galleon had its own 
treasury, was taken out with the survivors of the crew. 
The hull was then abandoned to the English. A few 
casks of stores were still found in her hold which had 
escaped destruction. Shortly afterward she sank. 

From the day on which it sailed the fleet had been 
pursued by misfortune. Two such disasters following 
on the unexpected and startling features of the first 
engagement struck a chill through the whole force. The 
officers had no longer the least trust in a commander- 
in-chief whom they had ill liked from the first. The 
national honor was supposed to be touched by the deser- 
tion of Pedro de Valdez, who was universally loved and 
respected. The Duke was suspected to be no better 
than a poltroon. The next morning, August 1, broke 
heavily. The wind was gone, and the galleons were 
rolling in the swell. The enemy was hull down behind 
them, and the day was spent in repairing damages, 
knotting broken ropes, and nailing sheets of lead over 
the shot holes. Eecalde's ship had been so roughly 
handled that the disposition of the squadrons was al- 
tered. De Leyva took charge of the rear in the Rata Co- 
ronada, where the danger was greatest. Don Martinez 
was passed forward into the advance, where he could at- 
tend to his hurts out of harm's way. The Duke in sour 
humor found fault all round, as incompetent command- 
ers are apt to do. Orders were issued that each ship 



4G The Spanish Story of the Armada 

should keep a position definitely laid down ; and any 
captain found out of bis place was to be immediately 
banged. Men will endure mucb from leaders whom 
they trust. Severit}- at such a moment was resented as 
ill-timed and undeserved. The day passed without in- 
cident. With the sunset the sea fell smooth, and not 
an air was stirring. The English fleet had come up, 
but was still a league behind. Both fleets were then off 
Portland. An hour after midnight De Leyva, Oquendo, 
and Recalde, burning with shame and indignation, came 
on board the San Martin, woke the Duke out of his 
sleep, and told him that now was the time for him to 
repair his credit. By the light of the rising moon the 
English ships could be seen drifted apart with the tide, 
and deprived in the breathless calm of their superior 
advantages. The galeasses, with their oars, should be 
sent out instantly to attack single vessels. The dawn it 
was likely would bring a breeze from the east, when the 
galleons could gather way and support them. The 
Duke roused himself. Oqueudo himself carried the 
orders to the captain of the galeasses, Don Hugo de 
Moncada. The galeasses prepared for action. The 
easterly air came up as was expected, and with the first 
clear light Howard was seen dead to leeward standing 
in for the land, and endeavoring, as he had done at 
Plymouth, to recover the weather-gage. The galeasses 
proved of small service after all, for the wind was soon 
too fresh ; and they were useless. They could do noth- 
ing except in a calm. But the San Martin and her lead- 
ing consorts bore down with all sail set. Howard 
being near the shore, had to tack and stand off to sea. 
He had thus to pass out through the centre of the whole 
Spanish fleet. The ships became intermixed, the Ark 
llaleigh was surrounded with enemies, and every Spanish 



The Spanish Story of the Armada 47 

captain's heart was bounding with the hope of boarding 
her. If they could once grapple they were justly confi- 
dent in the numbers and courage of their men. So near 
the chances were at one moment, that Martin De Bre- 
tandona, the Levantine commander, might have closed 
with one of the largest of the English ships " if he could 
have been contented with less than the vessel which car- 
ried Howard's flag." But the wind freshened up with 
the day, and Don Martin and Lis friends saw vessels 
handled in a style which they had never seen before. 
It has been often confidently urged, as a reason for re- 
ducing the naval estimates, that Howard's fleet was 
manned by volunteers, and not by professional seamen. 
It is true that the English crews were not composed of 
men who were in the permanent service of the Crown, but 
never in the history of the country were a body of sailors 
gathered together more experienced in sailing ships and 
fighting them. They were the rovers of the ocean. To 
navigate the wildest seas, to fight Spaniards wherever 
they could meet them, had for thirty 3-ears been their 
occupation and their glory. Tacking, wearing, making 
stern way where there was no room to tuni, they baffled 
every attack by the swiftness of their movements, and 
cleared their way out of the throng. Once more they 
drew away to windward, took at their leisure such posi- 
tions as suited them, and, themselves beyond the reach 
of the feeble Spanish artillery, fired into the galleons 
with their long heavy guns till five o'clock in the after- 
noon. This day the Duke personally behaved well. The 
San Martin was in the thickest of the fight, and received 
fifty shots in her hull. The famous standard was cut in 
two. The leaks were so many and so formidable that 
the divers were again at work all night plugging and 
stopping the holes. But the result was to show him, 



4S The Spanish Sfo/ // of the Armada 

and to show tlicm all, that the English ships wore 
superior to theirs in speed and power and weight of 
artillery, and that to board them against their will was 
entirely hopeless. Another observation some of them 
made which was characteristic of the age. The galleons 
which had no gentlemen on board had been observed to 
hold off and keep out of range. In the evening the v\ ii.d 
fell. With the last of it, Howard and Drake bore away 
and left them. as. with the calm, the galeasses might 
again be dangerous. Wednesday was breathless. The 
English wanted powder besides, having used what they 
had freely ; and they were forced to wait for fresh sup- 
plies, which eame up in the course of the afternoon. 
The Duke, as has been seen, was superstitious. So far 
the nuns' and the hermits' visions had not been realized, 
but, perhaps, his past ill-success had been sent only as a 
trial of his faith. 

The 4th of August, Thursday, was St. Dominie's Day. 
The house of Guzman de Silva claimed St. Dominic as a 
member of their family ; and St. Dominic, the Duke was 
assured, would now lend a hand to his suffering kins- 
man. The Isle of Wight, where he had announced to 
Philip that he intended to stop, was directly under his 
lee. Once anchored in St. Helen's Roads he would have 
the Armada in a safe shelter, where, if the English chose 
to attack him, they must come to closer quarters, as 
there would not be sea room for the manoeuvres which 
had been so disastrous to him.* If he could land ten 

* The Duke's intention of stopping at the Isle of Wight was - \- 
prossed by him as clearly as possible. Writing on July 30 to the King, 
he said he must advance "pooo a poco con toda el Armada junta en 
mis escuadrones hasta isla D'Wich y no pasar adelante hasta tenor 
aviso del Duque de Parma. Porque si yo saliese de alii eon esta, la 
costa de Flandes no habiendo en toda ella puerto ni abrigo ningvmo para 
estas naves, con el primer temporal ipie les diese les echaria a los bau- 



The Spanish Story of the Armada 40 

thousand men he might take the island ; and, perplexed, 
agitated, and harassed by the unexpected course which 
events had taken with him, he probably still intended 
to act on this resolution, which was the wisest which he 
could have formed. He would have another action to 
fight before he could get in, but with St. Dominic's help 
he might this time have better fortune. 

Howard and Drake seemed willing to give St. Dominic 
an opportunity of showing what he could do. They had 
received their powder. They had been reinforced by a 
few privateers who had come out from the Needles, and 
they showed a disposition to engage at a nearer distance 
than they had hitherto ventured. They were so far at 
a disadvantage that the wind was light, but, using what 
there was of it, the Ark Raleigh led straight down on 
the San Martin, ranged alongside, and opened a furious 
fire from her lower ports, as it appeared to the Spaniards, 
with heavier guns than she had used in the previous 
actions. Again the San Martin was badly cut up. Many 
of her men were killed and more were w y ounded. Seeing 
her hard pressed, Recalde and Ocpiendo came to the 
Duke's support. Oquendo drove his own ship between 
the Ark and the San Martin, receiving the broad- 
side intended for her, and apparently causing some con- 
fusion on board the Ark by a shot of his own. At this 
moment the wind dropped altogether. An eddy of the 
tide carried off the other English ships, leaving Howard 
surrounded once more by the enemy and in worse diffi- 
culties than in the fight off Portland. Three large gal- 
leons were close on board of him with Oquendo, the 
boldest officer of the Armada, in one of them. Eleven 

cos, donde Bin ningun remedio se habrian de perder ; y por excusar 
cste peligto tan evidente, me ha parecido no pasar adelante dc aquella 
isla hasta saber lo que el Duque hace," etc. — Duro, vol. ii., p. 331. 
4 



50 > lis/ Story of the Armada 

boats, to the amazement of the Spaniards, dropped over 
the Ark's side. Hundreds of men sprang into them, 
I their oars, and took the Axis, iu tow, careless of 
the storm of musketry which was rattling upon them. 
She was already moving when the breeze rose again. 
Her sails filled and she flew away, dragging ber own 
boats, and leaving behind the swiftest of the pursuing 
galloons as it' they were at anchor.* 

Again the experience was the same. St. Dominic had 
boon deaf or impotent, and a long Jay of fighting at 
disadvantage ended as usual. The ammunition of the 
Armada, which the Duke know from the first to bo in- 
sufficient, was giving out under the unprecedented de- 
mands upon it. Ha J ho boon wiso ho would still have 
made a desperate attempt to force his way into St. 
Helen's, His strength was not very much reduced. 
Though the loss of life had boon considerable, Pedro de 
Valdez's ship was the only one which had been token. 
To prevent him from entering the Solent the English 
must have closed with him, which they still hesitated to 
do. as they could not now tell how much hurt they had 
inflicted. The Duke had still this single chance of re- 
covering his credit. He might have gone in. Hail he 
done it, he might have taken the Wight, have even taken 
Portsmouth or Southampton ; at all events he would 
have placed the Armada in a position out of which it 
would have boon extremely difficult to dislodge it. But 
the unfortunate man had lost his head. He hated his 
work, tie determined to look neither right nor loft, 
but stick io Philip's own instructions, go on to the 
Straits of Dover as he had boon told to do. send Parma 

■so fiu- saliendo oon t<mt;i relooidad que el galeon San Juan .1.- 
Fernando y otro ligerisimo, con box I< b mas veleros il<- Y.\ Armada, que 
le fuexon dando oaga, en oomparacion so quedaron BUitos." 



7'///; Spanish Story of the Armada i>l 

notice of bis arrival, and leave the rest to fate. He de- 
spatched a messenger to tell the Prince to expect him 
and to have his army embarked ready to cross on the 
instant of liis arrival, He asked for a supply of fly- 
boats, gun-boats worked with oars, which Parma could 
not send him, and for ammunition of which the Prince 
had none to dispose, expecting himself rather to be fur- 
nished from the fleet. Then, taking the worst resolu- 
tion possible, and going forward to inevitable ruin, lie 
signalled to his flock to follow him and pursued his way 
up Channel, followed by the English as before. 

The Isle of Wight once passed, Hie worst danger to 
England was over. Lord Henry Seymour's squadron 
was in the Downs. Howard and Drake would soon 
join hands with him, and they could then concert what 
was next to be dour;. 

The Armada drifted on before a light west wind 
through Thursday night, all Friday, and till Saturday 
afternoon. They were then at Calais and dropped 
anchor in flic roads. Like a shadow which they could 
not shake off, the English clung to them behind. As 
they anchored, the English anchored also, a mile and a 
half astern, as if the infernal devils, esta endemoniada 
gente, had known what the Duke was going to do. 
Philip's advice had been to avoid the French coast, to 
keep the other side, and to bring up behind the North 
Foreland. The Duke, like Sancho, in the night advent- 
ure with the fulling hammers, was flying for safety under 
the skirts of Parma's coat, and thought that the nearer 
he could be to him the better it would be. He had 
thus brought Lis charge to the most dangerous road- 
stead in the Channel, with an enemy close to him who 
had less cause to fear the weather than he, and almost 
within gunshot of the French shore, when he did not 



• ■ 

',v'.',n\ w I . . •. r rnce whs friend or foe. For the mo- 
ment it secure. The wind was off the 
ted to si o the Prince of Parma :uul his 
boats i out of Dunkirk at Latest on the Monday 
. , Qch Governor came off to oall before 
dark, i \" essed his surprise to see him in a posi- 
where a shift of weather might bo inconvenient) 
,i him. meanwhile, the hospitalities of the pott. 
On the Sunday morning, August T. the purveyor of the 
fleet went shore to buy vegetables* The men were 
employed cleaning up the guns and setting the ships iu 
order after the oonfusion of the past week, and so mueh 
work had to be done that the daily rations were not 
served out and the Sunday holy day was a ban 

as the day wore on messengers oame in from 
Parma His transports were lying in Dunkirk, but 
nothing was ready, and the troops oould not be em- 
barked for a fortnight. Ho was himself at Bruges, but 
promised to hurry down to the port and to use all pos- 

expedition. This was not consoling in 
In the uncertain weather the Calais roadstead was no 
to linger in ; and the Duke's anxieties were not 
diminished when the English squadron of the Downs 
under Seymour and Sir John Hawkins sailed in and 
anchored with their consorts. Hawkins — Achines they 
called him — was an object of peculiar terror to the 
Spaniards from hjs exploits in the West Indies. Next 
to Drake, or the Dragon, ho was more feared than any 
other English seaman. The galleons wore riding with 
two anchors on account of the tide. An English pin- 
nace, carrying a light gun, ran down in the afternoon, 
sailed up to the San Martin, Lodged a couple of shots in 
her hull, and went off again. Hugo de Moneada sent a 
ball after her from the Cnpitana galeass which out a hole 



Tlu Spam h Story of t/u Armada 53 

in her topsail, but she flew ligm 1 1 e 8j 

ofli':' b airy 

impertinence. 

Jf the I>»'ij.f; was uneasy til'; English commandei 
not mean to give him time to recover himself. f 
: might be cm ; anchorage, but ij. r 

migbt settle. Aug ' lanneloffa 

settle. There bad been a week of fighting and the 
Armada bad got tfa of if, l>ut still there it •■ 

arance, not much damaged and within 
touch of the Pj inee ol Pi i m l 'J be ba< 
Parma's preparatioi uknown and •■ ed by 

the E morning he might Le 

looked for, issuing out of J; Lth bis fleet ol 

army on board L .1 making 

way aero StiaitK with the Armada to protect him. 

That Sunday evening Howard, Drake, Hawkins 
mour, and Ma ti Frobi erhelda consultation in the 
main cabin. The eo b they intended to 

follow bad probably been resolved on generally when 
Howard anchored so near the enemy on the previous 
evening, and the me ist have been only to arrange 

the method and mode of action. After nightfall the 
flood tide would be running strong along the coast, and 
an intermittent bui coming up from the 

'i I • D ike, as I e i I bis deck, ob- 

i lights moving soon after dark among the English 
Is. He expected mischief of some kind and had 
ordered a strict Look-out. About midnight eight large 
hulks were seen coming slowly down with tide and wind, 
ropes, and sails had been steeped in pitch, and as 
approached nearer they burst out into flami 
smoke. Straight on they came, for they had i 
board to direct the course, who only retreated to their 



5 \ . 

• when it was impossible to remain longer. The 
Spaniards, already agitated by the strange tricks of their 
English foes, imagined that the fireships were floating 
mines like those which bad blown to pieces so many 
thousands of men at the bridge at Antwerp. The Duke, 
instead of sending launches to tow them clear, fired a 
signal for the whole fleet to get instantly underway. In 
the hurry and alarm, and with two anchors down, they 
had do time to weigh, They oul their cables, leaving 
buoys by which to recover them at daylight, and stood 
out into the Channel, congratulating themselves for the 
moment at having skilfully and successfully avoided a 
threatening danger, Medina Sidonia's intention had 
boon to bring up again outside. \{c himself let go an 
anchor two miles off, and the host appointed galleons 
follow od his example. The main body, unfortunately, 
had boon sent t- 1 sea so ill provided that their third 
anchors, where they had any, were stowed awaj below 
and could not be brought op in time. Thus, when day 
dawned, the Duke found himself with loss than half bis 
force about him. The rest had drifted away on the tide 
and were sis miles to leeward. The purpose of his en- 
emy's •' traicion," treason, as the Spaniards regarded it. 
was now apparent. The San Martin, and the vessels 
which remained with ber, boisted anchor and signalled 
to return to the roadstead. Seventy of the Duke's ships 
were far away, unable to obey it they had tried. The 
■wind bad drawn into the northwest ; they were driving 
seemingly on the fatal hanks, and when the Duke pro- 
posed to go after them the pilots told him that if he 
did they would probably be all lost together. 

The spectacle on the shore was yel more dispiriting. 
The Oapitana galeass, in clearing out from the fire-ships, 
had fouled the cable of another vessel. Moncada, who 



The Spanish Story of the Armada 55 

commanded her, knew as little of seamanship as his 
commander-in-chief. Her helm was jammed. AnE 

crew with two hundred men at the oara would have 
found a way to manage her, but with galley slaves noth- 
i g could be done. She had drifted ashore under the 
town, and as the tide had gone back, was lying on her 
side on the sands, defending herself desperately against 

crews of six English ships, one of them Howard's 
Ai'k, who were attacking her in their boats. Mongada 
t like a hero till he was killed by a musket-shot, the 
jumped overboard, the surviving sailors and sol- 
diers followe I their example, and the galeass was taken 
and plundered. 

To the Duke such a sight was sad enough ; but he had 
little time to attend to if.. While Howard ■ 
time over the galea is, Drake and Hawkins had stooped 
on a nobler quarry. The great fleet was parted ; forty 
ships alone were present to defend the consecrated ban- 
ner of Castile which was Hying from the mainmast of 
the Sin .Martin. Forty only, and no more, were en- 
gage 'I in the battle which stripped Spain of her suprem- 
acy at sea. But in those forty were Oquendo, De Leyva, 
b calde, Bretendona, all that was best and bravest in 
the Spanish service. The first burst of the storm fell on 
the San .Martin herself. Drake, determined to make the 
most of his opportunity, no longer held off at long r, 
but closed up, yard-arm to yard-arm ; not to make prizes 
of the galleons, but to destroy, sink, or disable them. 
The force which the English brought into the action was 
no longer unequal to that of the enemy. The air was 
then so full of smoke that little could be seen from one 
ship of what was passing in another part of the action. 
Each captain fought his own vessel as he could, Medina 
giving no orders. He who, till the past few days, had 



\ S A 

never heard a shot fired in anger, found himself in the 

e of the most furious engagement that history had 

a record of. He was accused afterward of having shown 

cowardice. It was said that his cabin was stuffed with 

woolpaeks. and that he lay himself during the fight in 

tiddle of them. It was said, also, that ho charged 

his pilot to take his ship where the danger was least. If 

he did. his pilot disobeyed his orders, for the San Martin 
was in the hottest part of the battle It could cot be 
otherwise. The flag which she carried to the end of it 
necessarily drew the heaviest fire upon her. I 
counts of eye-witnesses charge the Duke only with the 
helpless incapacity which he had himself been the first 
to acknowledge. Though the ban Martin's timbers were 
of double thickness, the shot a; close range went through 
and through her. '•enough to shatter to pieces a rock." 
Her deck became a slaughter-house. Half her crew 
were killed or wounded, and she would have been sunk 
altogether had not Oqucndo and He Leyva dashed in 
and forced the English to turn their guns upon them, and 
enable the unhappy Duke to crawl away and stop his 
leaks again. This was about noon : and from that time 
he himself saw no more till the engagement was over. 
Even from his maintop nothing could be made out for 
smoke : but the air was shaking with the roar of the 
artillery. The Spanish officers behaved with the desper- 
ate heroism which became the countrymen of Cortes 
and Santa Cruz, and never did Spanish soldier or sea- 
man distinguish himself more than on this tremendous 
day. There was no flinching, though the blood was 
seen streaming out of the scuppers. Priests went up 
and down under the hottest the. crucifix in hand, con- 
fessing and absolving the dying. Not a ship struck 
lnr colors. They stool to their guns till their powder 



The Spanish Stpvy of tfie Armada 57 

wan nil gone, and in half the ships not a round was 
left. 

Happily for them, the English were no better fur- 
nished; Howard's ammunition was all exhausted also ; 
and the combal ended from mere incapacity to continue 
it. But the engagement from the first preserved the 
same character which bad been soon in those which had 
preceded it. Tho Spaniards' courage was useless to 
them. Their ships could not turn or sail; their guns 
were crushed by the superior strength of the English 
artillery; they were out-matched in practical skill, and, 
as the ships were to one another, they could not 
once succeed in fixing a grappling-iron in an English 
rigging. Thus, while their own losses were terrible, 
they could inflict but little in c< turn. They had endured 
for five Lours to be torn to pieces by cannon-shot — and 
that was nil. 

Before sunset the firing had ceased; 11 jo wind pose, 
the smoky canopy drifted away, an* 1 the San Martin and 
hi r comrades were seen floating, lorn and tattered, ctixi 
sin poder hacer mas resistencia, almost powerless to re- 
sist longer. If the attack had continued for (ho two 
hours of daylight that remained, they must all have sunk 
or surrendered. A galleon in Becalde's squadron had 
gone down with all hands on board. The .San Philip 
and the San Matteo were falling away dismasted and 
helpless toward the Dutch coast, where they afterward 
went ashore. Thecondition of the rest was little better. 

i< slaughter had been appalling from t.ho crowd of sol- 
diers who were on board. They bad given themselves up 
as lost when if- pleased God, for they could give no other 
explanation, that the enemy ceased to fire, drew off and 
loft them, to bring their vessels to the wind, throw their 
• load overboard, and soe to the hurts of the wounded, 



58 The Spanish Story of the Armada 

who were counted by thousands. They were so crip- 
pled that they could not bear their canvas, and un- 
less they could repair their damages swiftly, the north- 
west wind which was rapidly rising would drive them on 
the banks above Dunkirk. From the day on which they 
left Lisbon an inexorable fatality had pursued them. 
They had started in an inflated belief that they were 
under the especial care of the Almighty. One misfort- 
une had trod on another's heel; the central misfortune 
of all, that they had been commanded by a fool, had be- 
gun to dawn on the whole of them. But the conviction 
came too late to be of use, and only destroyed what was 
left of discipline. The soldiers, finding that tiny out- 
numbered the seamen, snatched the control, chose their 
own course, and forced the pilots to steer as they pleased. 
The night passed miserably in examining into injuries, 
patching up what admitted of being mended, and dis- 
covering other hurts which could not be mended. The 
fresh water which they had brought from Corunna had 
been stowed on deck. The casks had been shot through 
in the action, and most of it was gone. The Ave Maria, 
if it was sung that evening, must have been a dirge, and 
the Buenos Dias of the ship boys in the morning a mel- 
ancholy mockery. Yet seventy vessels out of the great 
fleet were still entire. They had not come up to join in 
the tight, because they could not. Their hulls wire 
sound, their spars were standing, their crews untouched 
by any injury worse than despondency. The situation 
was not really desperate, and a capable chief with such 
a force at his disposition might have done something 
still to retrieve his country's credit, if only these ships 
could be made use of. Yet when day broke it seemed 
that a common fate would soon overtake those who had 
fought and those who so far had escaped. 



The Spanish Story of the Armada 59 

Tljcy came together in the night. The dawn found 
them dragging heavily into the North Sea. The north- 
west wind was blowing hard, and setting them bodily 
on the banks. The bad sailers could not go to wind- 
ward at all. Those which had been in the fight could 
not bear sail enough to hold a course which, when sound, 
they might have found barely possible. The crews were 
worn out. On the Sunday they had been dinnerless 
and supperless. All Monday they had been fighting, 
and all Monday night plugging shotdioles and fishing 
spars. The English fleet hung dark and threatening a 
mile distant on the weather quarter. The water was 
shoaling every moment. They could see the yellow 
foam where the waves were breaking on the banks. To 
wear round would be to encounter another battle, for 
which they had neither heart nor strength, while the 
English appeared to be contented to let the elements 
finish the work for them. The English vessels drew 
more water, and would have grounded while the galleons 
were still afloat. It was enough for them if they could 
prevent the Armada from turning round and could force it 
to continue upon a course of which an hour or two would 
probably see the end. The San Martin and Oquendo's 
ship, the San Juan, were farthest out. The sounding- 
line on the San Martin gave at last but six fathoms ; the 
vessels to leeward had only five. Someone, perhaps 
Diego Florez, advised the Duke to strike his flag and 
surrender*. Report said that a boat was actually lowered 
to go off to Howard and make terms, and that Oquen- 
do had prevented it from pushing off, by saying savage- 
ly that he would fling Diego Florez overboard. The 
Duke's friends, however, denied the chai"ge, and insisted 
that he never lost his faith in God and God's glorious 
mother. Certain it is, that with death staring them 



6 ' The Spanish Story of the Armada 

in the face and themselves helpless, men and officers be- 
took themselves to prayer as the only refuge left, and 
apparently the prayer was answered. A person who was 
on the San Martin describes the scene. Everyone was 
in despair, he said, and only looking for destruction. 
Had the enemy known the condition in which they were, 
and borne down and attacked them, they must all have 
given in, for they were without power to defend them- 
selves. At the last extremity, somewhere about noon, 
"God was pleased to work a miracle." The wind shift- 
ed, backing to the southwest, and ceased to jam them 
down upon the sands. With cased sheets they were able 
to point their heads northward and draw out into the 
deep water. The enemy followed, still keeping at the 
same distance, hut showed no further disposition to 
meddle with them ; and the Armada breathed again, 
though huddled together like a flock of frightened sheep 
A miracle they thought it. Being pious Catholics and 
living upon faith in the supernatural they recovered 
heart, and began to think that God's anger was spent, 
and that He would now be propitious. He had been 
with them when they thought they were deserted. He 
had brought the survivors of them "through the most 
terrible cannonade ever seen in the history o( the world" 
(la mas fuerte bateria y major que los nacidos han visto 
ni los escriptores han escrito). He had perhaps been 
disciplining them to do His work after all. Death at 
any rate was no longer before their eyes 

Alas ! if the change of wind was really an act of Prov- 
idence in answer to prayer. Providence was playing with 
their credulity, and reserving them deliberately for an 
end still more miserable. This Tuesday, August 9, 
was the day of Philip's patron saint, St. Lawrence, whose 
arm he had lately added to his sacred treasures in the 



The /Spanish Story of the Armada Gl 

EscuriaL In the afternoon a council of war was again 
held on board the flag-ship, consisting of the Duke, 
Alonzo cle Leyva, Recalde, Don Francisco de Bobadilla, 
and Diego Florez. They had little pleasant to say to 
each other. Oquendo was at first absent, but came in 
while they were still deliberating. "O Sefior Oquendo," 
they cried, "que haremos," " What shall we do ? " "Do!" 
he replied; "bear up and fight again." It was the an- 
swer of a gallant man who preferred death to disgrace. 
But the Duke had to consider how to save what was 
left of his charge, and the alternatives had to be consid- 
ered. They were before the wind, running right up the 
North Sea. The Duke explained that every cartridge 
had been spent in the vessels which had been engaged, 
and that, although some were left in the rest of the fleet, 
the supply was miserably short. Their ships were leak- 
ing. Half the sailors and half the artillerymen were 
killed or wounded. The Prince of Parma was not ready, 
and they had found by experience that they were no 
match for the English in fighting. The coast of Spain 
was at present unprotected, and unless they could carry 
the fleet home in safety would be in serious danger. The 
Duke's own opinion was that they ought to make haste 
back, and by the sea route round the North of Scotland 
and Ireland. To return through the Straits implied 
more battles, and in their battered state it was doubtful 
whether they could work their way as the wind stood, 
even if the enemy left them alone. 

Flight, for it was nothing else, after such high expecta- 
tions and loud prayers and boastings, flight after but a 
week's conflict, seemed to the old companions of Santa 
Cruz an intolerable shame. De Leyva was doubtful. He 
admitted, as the Duke said, that the English were too 
strong for them. They had done their best and it had 



62 The Spanish Story of the Armada 

not availed. His own ship would hardly float, and lie 
had not thirty cartridges left. Becalde and Bobadilla 
supported Oquendo, and insisted that, at whatever risk. 
they must endeavor to recover Calais Roads. They 
were old sailors, who had weathered many a storm, and 
fought in many a battle. The chances of war had been 
against them so far, but would not bo against thorn al- 
ways. If the English fleet could go down Channel, it 
was not to bo supposed that a Spanish fleet could not, 
and if they were to return homo, the Chanuel was the 
nearest road. If the worst came, an honorable death 
was Intter than a scandalous retreat. 

Spanish history has accused Medina Sidonia of having 
been the cause that the bolder course was rejected. In- 
dependent contemporary witnesses say that it was made 
impossible by the despondency of the men, who could 
not be induced to encounter the English again. 

Though he determined against returning through the 
Channel, more than one alternative was still open to 
him. The harbors of Holland and Zealand were in the 
hands of Dutch rebels. But there was the Elbe, there 
was the Baltic, there was Norway. If the Duke had 
been a man of daring and genius there was the Frith 
of Forth. Had he anchored off Leith and played his 
cards judiciously, there was still a possibility for him to 
achieve something remarkable. The Duke, however, 
probably knew that his master had intended to exclude 
the King of Scots from the English succession, ami may 
have doubted the reception which he might moot with. 
Or, and perhaps more probably, he was sick of a com- 
mand which had brought him nothing but defeat and 
distraction, and was only eager to surrender his trust at 
the earliest possible moment. 

Thus forlorn and miserable, the great Armada, which 



The Spanish Story of the Armada 63 

was to have made an end of the European Reformation, 
was set upon its course for the Orkneys, from thence to 
bear away to the west of Ireland, and so round to Spain. 
Drake and Howard, not conceiving that their object 
would be so lightly abandoned, and ignorant of the con- 
dition to which the enemy was reduced, followed them 
at a distance to Bee what they would do, and on the 
Wednesday had almost taken Becalde, whose disabled 
ship was lagging behind. The Duke, however, did not 
dare to desert a second admiral. He waited for Iiecalde 
to come up, and the English did not interfere. In fact 
they could not. Owing to Elizabeth's parsimony, their 
magazines were hardly better furnished than the Spanish. 
In pursuing the Armada they acknowledged that they 
were but "putting on a brag" to frighten the Duke out 
of turning back. They could not have seriously attacked 
him again, at all events for many days, and the bravest 
course would after all have proved the safest for him. 
As it was, he saved Iiecalde, and went on thanking 
Providence for having induced the English to let him 
alone. 



IH. 

On Friday the 12th the Armada passed the mouth of 
the Forth. Howard had followed so far, expecting that it 
might seek shelter there. But it went by with a leading 
wind. He knew then that till another season they would 
see no more of it, so put about and returned to Margate. 

Believed of his alarming presence, the Spaniards were 
able to look into their condition and to prepare for a 
voyage which might now be protracted for several 



64 Spanish Story of the . I ada 

weeks. Tho Dake himself was short and sullen, shut 
himself in his state-room and refused to see or speak 
with anyone. Diego Flore* became the practical com- 
mander, and had to announce the alarming news that 
the provisions taken in at Corunna had boon wholly in- 
adequate, and that at the present rate of consumption 
they would all be starving in a fortnight. Tho state of 
the water-supply was worst of all, for the casks had 
most of them boon destroyed by the English guns, The 
salt moat and fish were gone or spoiled, The rations 
were reduced to biscuit Half a pound of biscuit, 
a pint of water, and half a pint of wine was all that each 
\\ rson could be allowed. Men and offioers fared alike ; 
and on this miserable diet, an J unprovided with warm 
clothing, which they never needed in their own sunny 
lands, the crews of the Armada were about to face the 
cold and storms of the northern latitudes. 

They had brought with them many hundreds of 
mules and horses. They might have killed and eaten 
thorn, and so mitigated the famine. But they thought 
of nothing. Tho wretched animals were thrown over- 
board to save water, and the ships in the roar sailed on 
through floating carcasses — a ghastly emblem of the gen- 
eral wreck. Tho Duke felt more than the officers gave 
him credit for. In a letter which he despatched to 
Philip on August 21, in a forlorn hope that it might 
reach Spain somehow, he described the necessity which 
had boon found of cutting down the food, and the con- 
sequent suffering.* That alone would have boon enough, 

* "For sev tan poooa los bastimentos quo so llevan, quo, para quo 
pnedan dnrar an mats, y el agaa, so has aoortado las raoiones general- 
mente sin exceptuai persona, porque m> pereican, dando so media libra 
de Mscocho, y un coartillo de agua, y medio de vino sin ningona otra 
oosa, oon quo so va padeeiendo lo quo V.M. podra iu/gar." — Medina 
Sidonia bo Philip, August 31. Duro, vol. ii-, p. 886. 



The Spanish Story qf the Armada 05 

for the men were wasting to a shadow of themselves, but 
besides there were three thousand sick with scurvy and 
atery, and thousands more with wounds uncured. 
But if he sympathized with the men's distresses he 
did not allow his sympathy to be seen. He knew that 
he was blamed for what had happened, that he was dis- 
d and perhaps despised ; and while keeping aloof 
from everyone, he encouraged their resentment by de- 
serving it. Many persons might have been in fault. 
But there is a time for all things, and those wretched 
/lavs, wretched mainly through the Duke's own blun- 
ders, were noi a time for severity; yet it pleased him, 
while secluded in his cabin, to order an inquiry into the 
conduct, of the commanders who had lost their anchors 
at Calais, and had failed to support him in the action 
which followed. He accused them of cowardice. He held 
a court-martial on them and ordered twenty to be exe- 
cuted. Death with most was exchanged for degradation 
and imprisonment, but two poor wretches were sell 
on whom the sentence was to be carried out, as ex- 
ceptionally culpable. When he had decided to fly, the 
Duke had ordered that the whole fleet should follow 
and not go in advance of the San Martin. A Captain 
Cuellar and a Captain Christobal de Avila had strayed 
for a few miles ahead, intending, as the Duke perhaps 
supposed, to desert. Don Christobal, to the disgust of 
the fleet, was executed with a parade of cruelty. He 
was hung on the yard of a pinnace, which was sent 
round the squadrons with Don ChristobaTs body swing- 
in;'- upon it. before it was thrown into the sea. Cuellar's 
fate was to have been the same. He commanded a gal- 
leon called the San Pedro. He had been in the action 
and had done his duty. His ship had been cut up. He 
himself had not slept for ten days, having been in every 



66 The Spanish Story of the Armada 

fight since the Armada entered the Channel. When all 

was over, and the strain had been taken off, he had 
dropped off exhausted. His sailing master, finding the 
San Pedro leaking, had gone in advance to lay-to and ex- 
amine her hurts. Exasperated at the disobedience to 
his directions, the Duke sent for Cuellar, refused io 
listen to his defence, and ordered him to be hanged. 
Don Francisco de Bobadilla with difficulty obtained his 
life for him, but he was deprived of his ship and sent 
under arrest to another galleon, to encounter, as will be 
seen, a singular adventure. 

The display of temper, added to the general conviction 
of the Duke's unfitness for his place, may have been the 
cause of the dispersal of the Armada which immediately 
followed. The officers felt that they must shift for them- 
selves. The fleet held together as far as the Orkneys, 
The intention was to hold a northerly course till the 
GOth parallel. Assuming the wind to remain in the 
west, the pilots held that from this altitude the galleons 
could weather the Irish coast at sufficient distance to be 
out of danger — to weather Cape Clear, as thev' described 
it, but the Cape Clear which they meant — a glance at 
the map will show it — was not the point so named at 
present, but Clare Island, the extreme western point of 
Mayo. The high-built, broad and shallow galleons were 
all execrable sailers, but some sailed Avorse than others, 
and some were in worse condition than others. They 
passed the Orkneys together, and were then separated 
in a gale. The nights were lengthening, the days were 
thick and misty, and they lost sight of each other. Two 
or three went north as far as the Faroe Islands, suffer- 
ing pitifully from cold and hunger. Detachments, 
eight or ten together, made head as they could, working- 
westward, against wind and sea, the men dying daily in 



The Spanish Story of the Armada 67 

hundreds. The San Martin, with sixty ships in company, 
kept far out into the Atlantic, and they rolled down tow- 
ard the south, dipping their mainyards in the tremen- 
dous seas. On August 21, the day on which the Duke 
wrote to Philip, they were two hundred miles west of 
Cape Wrath, amid the tumult of the waters. " The 
Lord," he said, " had been pleased to send them a fort- 
une different from that which they had looked for ; hut 
since the expedition had been undertaken from the be- 
ginning in the Lord's service, all doubtless had been 
ordered in the manner which would conduct most to the 
King's advantage and the Lord's honor and glory. The 
fleet had suffered so heavily that they had considered 
the best thing which, they could do would be to bring 
the remains of it home in safety. Their finest ships had 
been lost, their ammunition had been exhausted, and 
the enemy's fleet was too strong for what was left. The 
English guns were heavier than the Spanish ; their sail- 
ing powers immeasurably superior. The sole advan- 
tage of the Spaniards was in small arms, and these they 
could not use, as the enemy refused to close. Thus, 
with the assent of the vice-admirals, he was making for 
home round the Scotch Isles. The food was short ; the 
dead were many ; the sick and wounded more. He him- 
self could but pray that they might soon reach a port, as 
their lives depended on it." 

This letter, though sent off out of the Western Ocean, 
did eventually reach the King's hands. Meanwhile the 
weather grew wilder and wilder. The number of vessels 
which could bear up against the gales diminished daily, 
and one by one they fell to leeward on the fatal Irish 
shore. Leaving Medina Sidonia and the survivors which 
reached home along with him, the story must follow 
those which were unequal to the work required of them. 



68 The Spanish Story of the Armada 

The Spaniards wore excellent seamen. They had navi- 
gated ships no worse than those which were lumbering 
through the Irish seas, among West Indian hurricanes 
and through the tempests at Cape Horn. But these 
poor wretches were but shadows of themselves ; they 
had been poisoned at the outset with putrid provis 
they were now famished and sick, their vessels' sides 
torn to pieces by cannon-shot and leaking at a thousand 
holes, their wounded spars no longer able to bear the 
necessary canvas; worst of all. their spirits broken. 
The superstitious enthusiasm with which they started 
had turned into a fear that they were the objects of a 
malignant fate with which it was useless to struggle. 
Some had been driven among the Western Islands of 
Scotland ; the ships had been lost ; the men who got on 
shore alive made their way to the Low Countries. But 
these were the few. Thirty or forty other vessels had 
attempted in scattered parties to beat their way into the 
open sea. But, in addition to hunger, the men were 
suffering fearfully for want of water and perhaps forced 
the pilots either to make in for the land, or else to turn 
south before they had gained sufficient offing. Thus, 
or.e by one all these drove ashore, either on the coast of 
Sligo or Donegal, or in Clew Bay or Qalway Bay, or the 
rocks of Clare and Kerry, and the wretched crews who 
escaped the waves found a fate only more miserable. 
The gentlemen and officers, soiled and battered though 
they were, carried on land such ornaments as they pos- 
sessed. The sailors and soldiers had received their pay 
at Corunna, and naturally took it with them in their 
pockets. The wild Irish were tempted by the plunder. 
The gold chains and ducats were too much for their 
humanity, and hundreds of half-drowned wretches were 
dragged out of the waves only to be stripped and knocked 



Tht Spanish Story of the Armada 69 

on the head, while those who escaped the Celtic skencs 
and axes, too weak and exhausted to defend themselves, 
fell into I he hands of the English, troops who were in gar- 
rison in Connaught. The more intelligent of the Irish 
chiefs hurried down to prevent their countrymen from 
disgracing themselves. They stopped the robbing and 
murdering, and a good many unfortunate victims found 
shelter in their castles. Such Spaniards as were taken 
prisoners by the English met a fate of which it is im- 
possible to read without regret. Flung as they were 
upon the shore, ragged, starved, and unarmed, their 
condition might have moved the pity of less generous 
foes. But the age was not pitiful. Catholic fanaticism 
had declared war against what it called heresy, and the 
heretics had to defend their lives and liberties by such 
means as offered themselves. There might be nothing 
to fear from the Spanish prisoners in their present ex- 
tremity, but if allowed to recover and find protection 
from Irish hospitality, they might and would become 
eminently dangerous. The number of English was 
small, far too small, to enable them to guard two or 
three thousand men. With the exception, therefore, 
of one or two officers who were reserved for ransom, 
all that were captured were shot or hanged on the 
spot. 

The history of these unfortunates must be looked for 
in the English records rather than the Spanish. They 
never returned to Spain to tell their own stoiy, and 
Captain Duro has little to say about them beyond what 
he has gathered from English writers. Among the 
documents published by him, however, there is an ex- 
traordinary narrative related by the Captain Cuellar 
who so nearly escaped hanging, a narrative which not 
only contains a clear account of the wreck of the gal- 



70 The Spanish Story of the Armada 

leons, but gives a unique and curious picture of the 
Ireland of the time. 

The scene of the greatest destruction among the ships 
of the Armada was Sligo Bay. It is easy to see why. 
The coast on the Mayo side of it trends away seventy 
miles to the west as far as Achill and Clare Island, and 
ships embayed there in heavy southwesterly weather 
had no chance of escape. On one beach, five miles in 
length, Sir Jeffrey Fenton counted eleven hundred dead 
bodies, and the country people told him, " the like was 
to be seen in other places." Sir William Fitzwilliam 
saw broken timber from the wrecks lying between Sligo 
and Ballyshannon "sufficient to have built five of the 
largest ships in the world," besides masts and spars and 
cordage, and boats bottom uppermost. Among the ves- 
sels which went ashore at this spot to form part of the 
ruin which Fitzwilliam was looking upon was a galleon 
belonging to the Levantine squadron, commanded by 
Don Martin de Aranda, to whose charge Cuellar had been 
committed when Bobadilla saved him from the yard-arm. 
Don Martin, after an ineffectual struggle to double 
Achill Island, had fallen off before the wind and had 
anchored in Sligo Bay in a heavy sea with two other 
galleons. There they lay for four days, from the first 
to the fifth of September, when the gale rising their 
cables parted, and all three drove on shore on a sandy 
beach among the rocks. Nowhere in the world does the 
sea break more violently than on that cruel, shelterless 
strand. Two of the galleons went to pieces in an hour. 
The soldiers and sailors, too weak to struggle, were most 
of them rolled in the surf till they were dead and then 
washed up upon the shingle. Gentlemen and servants, 
nobles and common seamen, shared the same fate. 
Cuellar's ship had broken in two, but the forecastle held 



The Spanish Sto?'y of the Armada 71 

a little longer together than the rest, and Cuellar, cling- 
ing to it, watched his coim-ades being swept away and 
destroyed before his eyes. The wild Irish were down 
in hundreds stripping the bodies. Those who had come 
on shore with life in them fared no better. Some were 
knocked on the head, others had their clothes torn off 
and were left naked to perish of cold. Don Diego En- 
riquez, a high-born patrician, passed, with the Conde de 
ViUafranca and sixty-five others, into his ship's tender, 
carrying bags of ducats and jewels. They went below 
and fastened down the hatchway, hoping to be rolled 
alive on land. A huge wave turned the tender bottom 
upward, and all who were in it were smothered. As 
the tide went back the Irish came with their axes and 
broke a hole open in search of plunder ; while Cuellar 
looked on speculating how soon the same fate would be 
his own, and seeing the corpses of his comrades dragged 
out, stripped naked, and left to the wolves. His own 
turn came at last. He held on to the wreck till it was 
swept away, and he found himself in the water with a 
brother officer who had stuffed his pockets full of gold. 
He could not swim, but he caught a scuttle board as it 
floated by him and climbed up upon it. His companion 
tried to follow, but was washed off and drowned. Cu- 
ellar, a few minutes later, was tossed ashore, his leg 
badly cut by a blow from a spar in the surf. Drenched 
and bleeding as he was, he looked a miserable figure. 
The Irish, who were plundering the better dressed of the 
bodies, took no notice of him. He crawled along till 
he found a number of his countrymen who had been left 
with nothing but life, bare to their skins, and huddled 
together for warmth. Cuellar, who had still his clothes, 
though of course drenched, lay down among some 
rushes. A gentleman, worse off than he, for he was en- 



72 The Spanish Story of the Armada 

tirely naked, threw himself at his side too spent to speak. 
Two Irishmen came by with axes who, to Cuellar's sur- 
prise, cut some bushes, which they threw over them for a 
covering, and went on to join in the pillage on the shore. 
Cuellar, half dead from cold and hunger, fell asleep. He 
was woke by a troop of English horsemen galloping by 
for a share in the spoil. Ho called his comrade, but 
found him dead, while all round the crows and wolves 
were busy over the naked carcasses. Something like a 
monastery was visible not far off. Cuellar limped along 
till he reached it. He found it deserted. The roof of 
the chapel had been lately burned. The images of the 
saints lay tumbled on the ground. In the nave twelve 
Spaniards wore hanging from the rafters. The monks 
had lied to the mountains. 

Sick at the ghastly spectacle, he crept along a path 
through a wood, when ho came upon an old woman who 
was hiding her cattle from the English. Her cabin wag 
not far distant, but she made signs to him to keep off, 
as there were enemies in occupation there. Wandering 
hopelessly on, he foil in with two of his countrymen, 
naked and shivering. They were all famished, and they 
went back together to the sea, hoping to find some frag- 
ments of provisions washed on land. On the way they 
came on the body of Don Enriquez and stopped to 
scrape a hole in the sand and bury it. While they were 
thus employed a party of Irish came up, who pointed to 
a cluster of cabins and intimated that if they went there 
they would be taken care of. Cuellar was dead lame. 
His companions left him. At the first cottage which ho 
reached, there was an old Irish "savage," an English- 
man, a Frenchman, and a girl, The Englishman struck 
at him with a knife and gave him a second wound. They 
stripped him to his shirt, took a gold chain from 



The Spanish Story of the Armada 73 

him, which they found concealed under it, and a purse 
of ducats. They would have left him en cuerox, like 
the rest, without a rag upon him, had not the girl in- 
terposed, who affected to be a Christian, " though she 
was no more a Christian than Mahomet." The French- 
man proved to be an old sailor who had fought at Ter- 
ceira. In him the Spanish captain found some human 
kindness, for he bound up his leg for him and gave him 
some oatcakes with butter and milk. The Frenchman 
then pointed to a ridge of distant mountains. There, 
he said, was the country of the OHourke, a great chief, 
who was a friend of the King of Spain. O'Rourke 
would take care of him ; many of his comrades had al- 
ready gone thither for protection. With his strength 
something restored by the food, Cuellar crawled along, 
stick in hand. At night ho stopped at a hut where 
there was a lad who could speak Latin. This boy talked 
with him, gave him supper and a bundle of straw to 
sleep upon. About midnight the boy's father and 
brother came in, loaded with plunder from the wrecks. 
They, too, did him no hurt, and sent him forward in the 
morning with a pony and a guide. English soldiers 
were about, sent, as he conjectured, probably with 
truth, to kill all the Spaniards that they could fall in 
with. The first party that he met did not see him. 
With the second he was less fortunate. His guide 
saved his life by some means which Cuellar did not un- 
derstand. But they beat him and took his shirt from 
him, the last of his garments that had been left. The 
boy and pony went off, and he thought then that the 
end was come and prayed God to finish with him and 
take him to His mercy. Forlorn as he was, however, 
he rallied his courage, picked up a piece of old matting, 
and with this and some plaited ferns made a shift to 



74 The Spanish Story of the Armada 

cover himself ; thus costumed he went ou to a hamlet at 
the side of a lake ; the hovels of which it consisted were 
all empty ; he entered the best-looking of them, found 
some fagots of oat-straw, and was looking about for a 
place to sleep among them, when three naked figures 
sprang suddenly up. He took them for devils, and in his 
extraordinary dress they thought the same of him ; but 
they proved to have belonged to the wrecked galleons ; 
one of them a naval officer, the other two soldiers. 
They explained mutually who they were, and then 
buried themselves in the oat-sheaves and slept. They 
remained there for warmth and concealment all the 
next day. At night, having wrapped themselves iu 
straw, they walked on till they reached the dominions 
of the chief to whom they had been directed. OTvourke 
himself was absent " fighting the English," but his wife 
took them iu, fed them, and allowed them to stay. As 
a particular favor she bestowed an old cloak upon 
Cuellar, which he found, however, to be swarming with 
lice. The hospitality was not excessive. A report 
reached him that a Spanish ship had put into Killybegs 
Harbor, was refitting for sen, and was about to sail. He 
hurried down to join her, but she was gone. He learned 
afterward that she had been wrecked and that all on 
board had perished. 

He was now like a hunted wolf. The English deputy 
had issued orders that every Spaniard in the country 
must be given up to the Government. The Irish did not 
betray Cuellar, but they did not care to risk their necks 
by giving him shelter, and he wandered about through 
the winter in Sligo and Donegal, meeting with many 
strange adventures. His first friend was a poor priest, 
who was performing his functions among the Irish, in 
spite of the law, disguised as a layman. From this man 



The Spanish Story of the Armada 75 

be met with help. He worked next as a journeyman 
■with a blacksmith, whose wife was a brute. The priest 
delivered him from these people, and carried him to a 
castle, which, from the description, appears to have been 
on Lough Erne, and here, for the first time he met with 
hearty hospitality, in the Irish understanding of the 
term. The owner of the castle was a gentleman. He 
recognized an ally in every enemy of England. He took 
Cuellar into his troop of retainers, and dressed him in 
the saffron mantle of the Irish gallowglass. For some 
weeks he was now permitted to rest and recover himself, 
and he spent the time in learning the manners of the 
people. The chief's wife was beautiful, unlike the 
blacksmith's, and the handsome and unfortunate Span- 
ish officer was an interesting novelty. Besides the lady 
there were other girls in the castle, who came about him 
perhaps too ardently, asked him a thousand questions, 
and at length insisted that he should examine their 
hands and tell their fortunes. He had learned palmistry 
from the gypsies in his own land. His invention was 
ready. He spoke Latin, which they could understand, 
and he gathered from their lips broken fragments of 
their own Irish. At length, with his art and his attrac- 
tiveness, he gives the reader to understand that he was 
inconveniently popular ; men and women persecuted 
him with demands and attentions, and he had to throw 
himself on the protection of the chief himself. He de- 
scribes the habits and character of the people as if he 
was writing of a fresh discovered island in the New 
World. 

They lived, he said, like mere savages about the moun- 
tains. Their dwelling-places were thatched hovels. The 
men were large-limbed, well-shaped, and light as stags 
(sueltos como corzos). They took but one meal a day, 



76 The Spanish Story of the Armada 

and that at night. Their chief food was oatmeal and 
butter ; their drink sour milk, for want of anything 
better, and never water, though they had the best in the 
world. The usquebaugh Cuellar does not mention. On 
feast days they dined on underdone boiled meat, which 
they ate without bread or salt. The costume of the men 
was a pair of tight-fitting breeches with a goatskin 
jacket ; over this a long mantle. Their hair' they wore 
low over their eyes. They were strong on their legs, 
could walk great distances, and were hardy and endur- 
ing. They, or such of them as he had known, paid no 
obedience to the English. They were surrounded by 
swamps and bogs, which kept the English at a distance, 
and there was constant war between the races. Even 
among themselves they were famous thieves. They 
robbed from each other, and every day there was fight- 
ing. If one of them knew that his neighbor had sheep 
or cow, he would be out at night to steal it, and kill the 
owner. Occasionally a fortunate robber would have col- 
lected large herds and flocks, and then the English would 
come down on him, and he had to fly to the hills with 
wife, and children, and stock. Sheep and cattle were 
their only form of property. They had no clothes and 
no furniture. They slept on the ground on a bed of 
rushes, cut fresh as they wanted them, wet with rain or 
stiff with frost. The women were pretty, but ill-dressed. 
A shift or a mantle, and a handkerchief knotted in front 
over the forehead, made their whole toilet ; and on the 
women was thrown all the homework, which, after a 
fashion, they managed to do. The Irish profeOd to 
be Christians. Mass was said after the Roman rule. 
Their churches and houses of religion had been destroyed 
by the English, or by such of their own countrymen as 
had joined the English. In short, they were a wild, law- 



The Spanish Story of the Armada 77 

less race, and everyone did as lie liked. They wished 
well to the Spaniards because they knew them to be 
enemies of the English heretics, and had it not been for 
the friendliness which they had shown, not one of those 
who had come on shore would have survived. It was 
true at first they plundered and stripped them naked, 
and fine spoils they got out of the thirteen galleons 
which were wrecked in that part of the country ; but as 
soon as they saw that the Spaniards were being killed 
by the English, they began to take care of them. 

Such was Cuellar's general picture, very like what was 
drawn by the intruding Saxon, and has been denounced 
as calumny. Cuellar was, at any rate, impartial, and 
rather liked his hosts than otherwise. The Lord Deputy 
was alarmed at the number of fugitives who were said 
to be surviving. As the orders to surrender them had 
not been attended to, he collected a force in Dublin 
and weut in person into the West to enforce obedience. 
Cuellar's entertainer had been especially menaced, and 
had to tell his guests that he could help them no fur- 
ther. He must leave his castle and retreat himself with 
his family into the mountains, and the Spaniards must 
take care of themselves. Cuellar calls the castle Man- 
glana ; local antiquaries maybe able to identify the spot. 
It stood on a promontory projecting into a long, deep, 
and broad lake, and was covered on the land side by a 
swamp. It could not be taken without boats or artil- 
lery, and the Spaniards offered to remain and defend it 
if the chief would leave them a few muskets and pow- 
der, with food for a couple of months. There were 
nine of them. The chief agreed, and let them have 
what they wanted ; and, unless Cuellar lies, he and his 
friends held " Manglana " for a fortnight against a force 
of eighteen hundred English, when God came to their 



> The Spanish Story 

help by sending such weather that the enemy could 
any longer keep the field. 
Dh< > . , find] * the value of such auxiliaries, wished 

ep them i .ily :\t his i offered Cuel- 

lar his sister tor a wife, Cuellar, however, was long- 
ing tor home. He supposed that if ho could reach 
Scotland ho could cross easily from thence to Flanders. 

night aft< I stmas lie slipped awaj and made 
Lntrim, travelling, seemingly, only in the dark, and 
hiding during day. Ho was in constant danger, as the 
tracks were watched, and suspected persoi 
and searched. He got as far as the Giant's Causeway ; 
he heard particulars of the wreck of the - ip 
which he had tried to join at Killybegs. [t was n galeass 
with A I a board and two or three hundred 

others with him. They were all dead, and Cuell (u - 
the relies of them which the people had collected on 
the shore. Alonzo de Leyvawas the bes of all 

the Spaniards in the fleet, and the sight of th< 
\ . lie had perished was a fresh distress. He W a 
afraid to approach a port lest he should be seized and 

I d. For six weeks he was hid away by some 
women, and after that by a bishop, who was a good 
Christian, though dressed like a savage. 1 is bishop 
had :; Spaniards with him. fed, clothed, and said 

Mass for them, and at last found a boat to carry them 
across the Channel T. 3 . r a three days' 

struggle with the sea e 1:1 Argyllshire. 

They had been led to hope for i.. tnies Cuel- 

lar says : James nev- 

er gave them a bawbee, and would have handed them 
over to the English if he had not been afraid of the re- 

lent of the S . Catholic nobles. T. ( 
ist Lowlanders showed tin j> hospitality. The 



The Spanish Story of the Armada 79 

Prince of Parma was informed of their condition, and 
agreed with a Flemish merchant to bring over to him all 
the Spaniards, now numerous, who were on Scotch soil, 
at live ducats a head. Even yet misfortune had not 
tired of persecuting them. In their passage they were 
chased and tired on by a Dutch frigate. They had to 
run ashore, where they were intercepted by the Hol- 
landers, and all but Cuellar and two of his companions 
were killed. 

So ends the Spanish captain's story. The wide calam- 
ities involving multitudes are but the aggregate of the 
sufferings of each individual of whom the multitude is 
composed. Cuellar came off luckily compared with 
most of his companions. Each of the twenty-nine thou- 
sand men who sailed in July from Corunna would have 
had to relate a tale of misery at least as pitiful as his, 
and the worst of all was, that no one's neck was wrung 
for it. 

The sixty galleons Avho remained with the Duke till 
the end of August were parted again by a southwesterly 
gale, off the point of Kerry. The Duke himself passed 
so far out to sea that ho did not see the Irish coast at all. 
Recalde, with two large ships besides his own, had come 
round Dunmoro Head, near the land. His crews were 
dying for want of water. He seems to have known 
Dingle. Dr. Sanders, with the Pope's contingent, had 
landed there eight years before, and a statement in an 
account of Recalde's life that he had once carried a thou- 
sand men to the coast of Ireland, refers probably to that 
occasion. At all events, ho was aware that there was a 
harbor in Dinglo Bay, and he made for it with his con- 
sorts. One of them, Our Lady of the Rosary, was 
wrecked in Blasket Sound. She carried seven hundred 
men when she sailed out of Lisbon. Two hundred out 



80 The Spanish Story of the Armada 

of the seven were alive in her when she struck the rock, 
and every one of them perished, save a single lad. Re- 
calde, with the other galleoD, anchored in the Dingle 
estuary, and sent in to the town a passionate entreaty to 
be allowed to fill his water-casks. The fate of the Papal 
troops, who had been all executed a few miles off, had 
so frightened the Irish there that they did not dare to 
consent. The English account states that Recalde had 
to sail as he was, to live or die. The belief in Spain 
was that he took the water that he wanted by force. 
Perhaps the inhabitants were not entirely inhuman, and 
did not interfere. He saved the lives for the moment 
of the wretched men under his charge, though most 
of them perished when they reached their homes ; he 
brought back his ship to Corunna, and there died him- 
self two days after his arrival, worn out by shame and 
misery. 

Oquendo also reached Spain alive. The persevering 
west winds drove him down the Bay of Biscay, and he 
made his way into St. Sebastian, where he had a wife and 
children ; but he refused to see them ; he shut himself 
into a solitary room, turned his face to the wall, and 
ended like Recalde, unable to outlive the disgrace of the 
gallant navy which he had led so often into victory. 
They had done all that men could do. On the misera- 
ble day when their commander decided to turn his back 
and fly they would have forced him upon a more honor- 
able course, and given the forlorn adventure an issue 
less utterly ignominious. But their advice had been re- 
jected. They had sailed away from an enemy whose 
strength at most was not greater than theirs. They had 
escaped from a battle with a human foe to a more fa- 
tal war with the elements, and they had seen their com- 
rades perish round them, victims of folly and weakness. 



The Spanish Story of the Armada 81 

The tremendous catastrophe broke their hearts, and 
they lay down and died. Oquendo's Capitana had been 
blown up after the fight at Plymouth. By a strange fa- 
tality the ship which brought him home blew up also in 
the harbor at St. Sebastian. The explosion may have 
been the last sound which reached his failing sense. 
The stragglers came in one by one ; sixty-five ships only 
of the hundred and thirty who, in July, had sailed out 
of Corunna full of hope and enthusiasm. In those hun- 
dred and thirty had been twenty-nine thousand human 
creatures, freshly dedicated to what they called the ser- 
vice of their Lord. Nine or ten thousand only returned ; 
a ragged remnant, shadows of themselves, sinking under 
famine and fever and scurvy, which carried them off 
like sheep with the rot. When they had again touched 
Spanish soil, a wail of grief rose over the whole penin- 
sula, as of Rachel weeping for her children ; yet above 
it all rose the cry, Where was Alonzo de Leyva ? Where 
was the flower of Spanish chivalry ? Cuellar knew his 
fate ; but Cuellar was with his Irish chief far away. 
Weeks, even months, passed before certain news arrived, 
and rumor invented imaginary glories for him. He had 
rallied the missing galleons, he had fallen in with Drake, 
had beaten and captured him, and had sunk half the Eng- 
lish fleet. Vain delusion ! De Leyva, like Oquendo and 
Recalde, had done all which could be done by man, and 
God had not interposed to help him. He had fought 
his Eata Coronada till her spars were shot away and 
her timbers pierced like a sieve. She became water- 
logged in the gales on the Irish coast. A second galleon 
and a surviving galeass were in his company. The Rata 
and the galleon drove ashore. De Leyva, in the galeass, 
made Killybegs Harbor, and landed there with fourteen 
hundred men. It was the country of the O'Neil. They 



8:2 The Spanish Story of the Armada 

wi re treated with the generous •warmth which became 
the greatest of the Irish chieftains. But their presence 
was known in Dublin. O'Neil was threatened, and De 
Leyva honorably refused to be an occasion of danger to 
him. He repaired the galeass at Killybegs. The Octo- 
ber weather appeared to have settled at last, and he 
started again with as many of his people as the galeass 
would carry to make the coast of Scotland. She had 
passed round the north of Donegal, she had kept 
along the land and had almost reached the Giant's 
Causeway, when she struck a rock and went to pieces, 
and De Leyva and his companions went the way of the 
rest. 

The men who came back seemed as if they had been 
smitten by a stroke from which they could not rally. 
One of them describes pathetically the delight, with 
which, after those desperate storms, and hunger and 
cold and thirst, they felt the warmth of the Spanish sun 
again ; saw Spanish grapes in the gardens at Santander, 
and the fruit hanging on the trees ; had pure bread to 
eat and pure water to drink. But the change brought 
no return of health. For the first weeks they were left 
on board their ships, no preparation on shore having 
been made to receive them. When the mortality was 
found rather to increase than diminish, they were moved 
to hospitals, but they died still by hundreds daily, as if 
destiny or Providence was determined to sweep off the 
earth every innocent remnant of the shattered expedi- 
tion, while those who were really to blame escaped un- 
punished. 

Medina Sidonia had been charged by Philip to report 
his progress to him as often as messengers could be 
sent off. He had written when off the Lizard before 
his first contact with the enemv. He had written again 



The Spanish Story of the Armada 83 

on August 21 among the Atlantic rollers, when lie be- 
lieved that lie was bringing home his charge at least safe 
if not victorious. On September 22 he arrived at San- 
tander, and on the 23d reported briefly the close of the 
tragedy so far as it was then known to him. The weather, 
he said, had been terrible since he last wrote. Sixty- 
one vessels were then with him. They had held toler- 
ably well together till September 18, when they were 
caught in another gale, and fifty of them had gone he 
knew not where. Eleven only had remained with him- 
self. They had made the coast near Corunna, and had 
signalled for help, but none had come off. They had 
then struggled on to Santander and were lying there at 
anchor. He had himself gone on shore, being broken 
down by suffering. The miseries which they had ex- 
perienced had exceeded the worst that had ever before 
been heard of. In some ships there had not been a 
drop of water for fourteen days. A hundred and eighty 
of the crew of the San Martin had died, the rest were 
down with putrid fever. Of his personal attendants all 
were dead but two. There was not food enough left on 
board for those who were alive to last two days. The 
Duke "blessed the Lord for all that He had ordained ;" 
but prayed the King to see instantly to their condition, 
and to send them money, for they had not a maravedi 
in the fleet. He was himself too ill to do anything. 
There was no person whose duty it was to help them, 
neither inspector, purveyor, nor paymaster. They could 
obtain nothing that they wanted. He had written to 
the Archbishop of Burgos for assistance in establishing 
a hospital.* 

The opinion in Spain was savagely hostile to the Duke. 

* The Duke of Medina Sidonia to Philip, September 23, from San- 
tander. 



84 The Spanish Story of the Armada 

It was thought that if he had possessed the feelings oi 
a gentleman, he would have died of the disgrace like 
Oquendo and Recalde. The Duke, so far from feeling 
that he was himself to blame, considered that he above 

the vest had most reason to complain of having been 
I into a position which he had not sought and for 
which he had protested his untitiu ->-. Being Lord High 
Admiral, his business was to remain with the fleet, how- 
ever ill lie might be, till some other responsible officer 
could be sent to relieve him. His one desire was to 
escape from the sight of ships and everything beloi 

I m, and hide himself and recover his spirits in his 
palace at San Luear. Not Sancho, when he left his isl- 
and, could be i c haste to rid himself of his office 
and all belonging to it. 

^ v September _7. before an answer could arrive from 
Philip, lie wrote again to Secretary Idiaques. A 
all the sailors were dead, he said. Many oi the ships 
were dismasted ; no one could believe the state in which 
they were. Idiaquez must look to it. For himself, his 
health was broken : he was unfit for further duty, and 
even if he was perfectly well he would never go on ship- 
board again. He was absolutely without any knowledge 
either of navigation or of war, and the King could have 
no object in forcing him to continue in a service from 
which the State could derive no possible advantage. He 

I d that he might be thought of no more in w 
tion with the navy, and that, since the Lord had not 
been pleased to call him to that vocation, he might not 
be compelled to return in a situation of which he could 
not. as he had many times explained, conscientiously 
discharge the duties. His Majesty, he said, could not 
surely wish the destruction of a faithful subject. With 
sea affairs he neither could nor would meddle any fur- 



The Spanish Story of tin Armada S5 

ther, though it should cost him liis head.* Better so 
than fail in mi office of tlie duties of which he was igno- 
rant, and where he had to be guided by the advice of 
others, in whose honesty of intention ho could feel no 
confidence. 

The last allusion was of course to Diego Florez, on 
whom, since it \v;is necessary to punish someone, the 
blame was allowed to fall. In justice, if justice was (o 
have a voice in the matter, the person really guilty was 
Don Philip. Of the subordinates, Diego Florez was 
probably tho most in fault, and ho was imprisoned in 
tho Castle of Burgos. For the rest, Philip was singu- 
larly patient, his conscience perhaps telling him that if 
he was to demand a sirict account he would have to be- 
gin with himself. The popular story of tho composure 
with which he heard of the fate of tho Armada is sub- 
stantially true, though rather too dramatically pointed. 
Tho awful extent of the catastrophe became known to 
him only by degrees, and the end of Alonzo de Leyva, 
which distressed him most of all, he oidy heard of at 
Christmas. 

To tho Duke's letter he replied quietly and affection- 
ntoly, without a syllable of reproach. Unlike Elizabeth, 
who left the gallant seamen who had saved her throne 
to dio of want and disease in tho streets of Margate, 
and had to be reminded that the pay of those who had 
been killed in her service was still due to their relations, 
Philip ordered clothes, food, medicine, everything that 
was needed, to be sent down in hottest haste to Co- 
runna and Santander. The widows and orphans of the 
dead sailors and soldiers were sought out and pen- 
sioned at tho cost of the State. To Medina Sidonia he 

* " En las oosaa do la mcr, por ningun caso ni por alguini via trataro 
dollas, aunque mo oostasc la caboza." 



S6 The Spanish Story of the Armada 

sent the permission which the Duke had asked for, to 
leave the fleet and go home. He could not in fair- 
ness have blamed the commander-in-chief for having 
failed in a situation for which he had protested his in- 
competence. The fault of Philip as a king and states- 
man was a belief in his own ability to manage things. In 
sending out the Armada he had set in motion a mighty 
force, not intending it to be used mightily, but that 
he might accomplish with it what he regarded as a 
master-stroke of tame policy. He had selected Medina 
Sidonia as an instrument who would do what he was 
told and would make no rash experiments. And the 
effect was to light a powder-magazine which blew to 
pieces the naval power of Spain. It is to his credit, 
however, that he did not wreak his disappoiutment upon 
his instruments, and endured patiently what had be- 
fallen him as the Will of God. The Will of God, in- 
deed, created a difficulty. The world had been informed 
so loudly that the Armada was going on the Lord's 
work, the prayers of the Church had been so long and 
so enthusiastic, and a confidence in what the Lord was 
to do had been generated so universally, that when the 
Lord had not done it, there was at once a necessity for 
acknowledging the judgment, and embarrassment in de- 
ciding the terms in which the truth was to be acknowl- 
edged. Philip's formal piety provided a solution which 
might have been missed by a more powerful intellect, 
and on October 13 the following curious letter was ad- 
dressed by him to the bishops and archbishops through- 
out his dominions : 



"Most Reverend : — The uncertainties of naval enterprises 
are well known, and the fate which has befallen the Armada 
is an instance in point. You will have already heard that 



The Spanish Story of the Armada 87 

the Duke of Medina Sidonia has returned to Santander, 
bringing back with him part of the fleet. Others of the 
ships have reached various ports, some of them having suf- 
fered severely from their long and arduous voyage. We are 
bound to give praise to God for all things which He is pleased 
to do. I on the present occasion have given thanks to Him 
for the mercy which He has shown. In the foul weather and 
violent storms to which the Armada has been exposed, it 
might have experienced a worse fate ; and that the misfort- 
une has not been heavier is no doubt due to the prayers 
which have been offered in its behalf so devoutly and con- 
tinuously. 

"These prayers must have entailed serious expense and 
trouble on those who have conducted them. I wish you, 
therefore, all to understand that while I am, so far, well 
jdeased with your exertions, they may now cease. You may 
wind up in the cathedrals and churches of your dioceses with 
a solemn Thanksgiving Mass on any day which you may ap- 
point, and for the future I desire all ecclesiastics and other 
devout persons to continue to commend my actions to the 
Lord in their secret devotions, that He may so direct them 
as shall be for His own service, the exaltation of His Church, 
the welfare and safety of Christendom, which are the objects 
always before me. 

"From the Escurial : October 13, 1588.* 

Medina Sidonia reconsidered bis resolution to have no 
more to do with ships and righting. He was continued 
in his office of Lord High Admiral ; he was again ap- 
pointed Governor of Cadiz, and he had a second oppor- 
tunity of measuring himself against English seamen, 
with the same result as before. Essex went into Cadiz 
in 1596, as Drake had gone in 1587. The Duke acted 
in the same manner, and withdrew to Seville to seek 
for reinforcements. He ventured back only after the 

* Duro, vol. ii., p. 314. 



88 The Spanish Story of the Armada 

English bad gone, and was again thanked by his master 
for his zeal and courage. As if this was not enough, 
Philip, in 1598, raised him to the rank of Consejero 
altisimo de Estado y Guerra, Supreme Councillor in 
Politics and War. "Who can wonder that under such a 
king the Spanish Empire went to wreck ? 

The people were less enduring. Clamors were raised 
that he had deserted the fleet at Santander, that he had 
shown cowardice in action, that he had neglected the 
counsels of his wisest admirals, that he was as heartless 
as he was incapable, and that, leaving the seamen and 
soldiers to die, he had hastened home to his luxuries at 
Sun Lucar. In reality he had gone with the King's per- 
mission, because he was useless and was better out of 
the way. He was accused of having carried off w r ith him 
a train of mules loaded with ducats. He had told Philip 
that he had not brought home a maravedi, and if he had 
really taken money he would have done it less ostenta- 
tiously and with precautions for secrecy. 

But nothing could excuse him to Sixain. Every cal- 
umny found credit. He had shown " cobavdia y con- 
tinual pavor y miedo de rnorir, avaricia, dureza y cru- 
eldad "' — cowardice, constant terror, and fear of death, 
avarice, harshness, and cruelty. His real faults were 
enough without piling others on him of which he was 
probably innocent. "With or without his will, he had 
been in the thickest and hottest parts of the hardest 
engagements, and the San Martin had suffered as 
severely as any ship in the fleet. He knew nothing of 
the work which he was sent to do ; that is probably the 
worst which can justly be said of him ; and he had not 
sought an appointment for which he knew that he w r as 
unfit. But an officer who tried to defend him was 
obliged to admit that it would have been happy for his 



The Spanish Story of (he Armada 89 

country if the Duke had never been born ; that he threw 
away every chance which was offered him, and that he 
talked and consulted when acts and not words were 
wanted. 

His journey home across Castile was a procession of 
ignominy. The street boys in Salamanca and Medina 
del Campo pelted him with stones ; crowds shouted after 
him "A las gallinas, a las almadradas "— " To the hens 
and the tunnies "—the tunnies being- the fattest and the 
most timid of fish, and the tunny fishing being a monop- 
oly of his dukedom. He was told that he had disgraced 
his illustrious ancestors, and that had he the spirit of a 
man he would not have outlived his shame. 

History does not record the reception which he met 
with from his wife when he reached his palace. 



ANTONIO PEREZ: AN VXSOLVED HIS- 
TORICAL RIDDLE* 

One day early in the spring of the year 1590, while 
Spain was still bleeding from the destruction of the 
Great Armada, Mass was being sung in the Church of 
the Dominican Convent at Madrid. The candles were 
burning, the organ was pealing, the acolytes were swing- 
ing the censers, and the King's confessor was before the 
altar in his robes, when a woman, meanly dressed, rushed 
forward amid the fumes of the incense. Turning to 
the priest, she said : "Justice! I demand justice ; I de- 
mand that you hear me ! Are you deaf, that I come so 
often to you and you will not listen ? Then I appeal to 
One who will listen ; I appeal to thee nry God who art 
here present ; I call on God to be my witness and my 
judge ; He knows the wrongs which I suffer. Let Him 
punish yonder man, who is my oppressor." 

The coufessor turned pale as death. He stood speech- 
less for a few moments. He then beckoned to the at- 
tendants. '• Bid the lady prioress come hither," he said, 
•• and the sisterhood, and this woman's sister, who is one 
of them. Say I require their presence." 

The lady mother came fluttering with her flock behind 
her. They gathered to the grating which divided the 
chancel from the convent precincts. 

"Holy mother," the confessor said, "this lady here 
present charges me on my soul and conscience. She calls 

* Nineteenth Century. April, May, ISSo. 



An Unsolved Historical Riddle 91 

on God to judge her cause, and she clamors for redress. 
I do not wonder ; I should wonder rather if she held her 
peace. But what can I do that I have left undone ? I 
have told the King that it is his duty to despatch the 
business of the lady's husband and restore him to his 
family ; what would she have from me more ? " 

" I would have this much more, senor," the lady re- 
plied. " If the King will not do what you command him, 
refuse him absolution and withdraw to your cell. You 
will be nearer heaven there, than where you now stand. 
As the King's confessor you are his judge. The King is 
the offender ; I am the injured woman of St. Luke's 
Gospel. The King may wear the crown on his head ; 
but you are higher than he." 

The confessor could not answer her. 

The scene shifts to the reception - hall of Rodrigo 
Vasquez, the President of the High Court of Justice. 
The president was a grave, dignified man, seventy years 
old. Before him stood a family of children, the eldest 
a girl of sixteen, the little ones holding her hands or 
clinging to her dress. 

The girl did not seem daunted by the presence in 
which she stood. "Your lordship," she said, "has prom- 
ised us this, that, and the other ; you tell us one day 
that something shall be done on the morrow, and then 
the next, and the next, as if a last ' morrow ' there would 
never be. You have brought our home to desolation. 
You have deceived a girl like me, and you think it a 
grand victory, a glorious distinction. You thirst, it 
seems, for our blood ; well, then, you shall have it. Old 
men, it is said, go again to the breast for milk to keep 
the life in them. You require blood, fresh from the 
veins of its owners. We had rather not be swallowed 
piecemeal, so we are come all to you together. You per- 



99 -t Uiis Ived Historical Riddle 

haps would prefer to linger over us. but we cannot wait. 

1. . your lordship make an end with us. Hero we are." 
Don Rodrigo started out of his chair. He inarched up 

the hall, and down, and then to the four corners. He 
twisted his fingers, he crossed his arms. He appealed 
to an old aunt and unele who had brought the children. 

"Senora, senor." he said. "I beseech you make that 
young woman hold her peace and say no more." 

The young woman would not hold her peace. 

"Pray, sit down, your lordship," she said ; "pray, be 
calm. We are young ; some of lis were born, so to say, 
but yesterday. But you have made our lives a burden 
to us. Finish the work : take our blood, and let our 
souls depart from this miserable prison." 

These two incidents, if the children's father wrote the 
truth, happened precisely as I have described them, and 
are as literal facts as usually pass for history. Perhaps 
they are not exaggerated at all. The priest in the 
Dominican convent was Diego de Chaves, spiritual ad- 
viser to Philip the Second. The woman before the altar 
was Juana de Coello, wife of Antonio Perez, his Majesty 's 
tary of State and confidential minister. The girl 
in the Court of Justice was his daughter. Dona Gregoria, 
and the little ones were her brothers and sisters. 

"What strange cause could have wrought a mother and 
child into a state of passion so unnatural ? 

For three centuries after the Reformation, Philip the 
Second was the evil demon of Protestant tradition. Every 
action which could be traced to him was ascribed to the 
darkest motives. He was like some ogre or black en- 
chanter sitting in his den in the Eseurial, weaving plots 
for the misery of mankind, in close communion and cor- 
respondence with his master, the Antichrist of Pome. 
He was the sworn enemy of the light which was rising 



An Unsolved Historical Riddle 93 

over Europe ; he was the assassin of his subjects abroad ; 
he was a tyrant at home, and even in his own household ; 
he was believed universally to have murdered his own 
son, and if not to have murdered his wife, to have driven 
her to death with a broken heart. The Inquisition was 
his favorite instrument, and his name has been handed 
down through modern history by the side of the most 
detestable monsters who ever disgraced a throne. 

All this violence of censure was perfectly natural. 
Men engaged in a deadly struggle for what they regard 
as a sacred cause are seldom charitable to their adver- 
saries. It was the Spanish power indisputably which 
stemmed the Reformation, and more than once was near 
extinguishing it. The conflict was desperate and at last 
savage, and deeds were done which have left a stain on 
all who were concerned in them. 

But as time has gone on, and as it has appeared that 
neither Lutheranism nor Calvinism nor Anglicanism can 
be regarded as a final revelation, we have been able to 
review the history of the sixteenth century in a calmer 
temper. For a thousand years the doctrines of the 
Catholic Church had been guarded by the civil pow r er as 
the most precious of human possessions. New T ideas on 
such subjects, shaking as they do the foundations of 
human society, may be legitimately resisted on their 
first appearance from better motives than hatred of 
truth ; and although, in a strife so protracted and so 
deadly, evil passions dressed themselves in sacred 
colors, and crimes were committed which we may legit- 
imately assign to the devil, yet it has been recognized 
that, on fair grounds of principle, right-thinking men 
might naturally have taken opposite sides, and that 
Catholics as well as Protestants might have been acting 
on conscientious convictions. The dust has settled a 



(U An Unsolved Historical Riddle 

little, the spiritual atmosphere lias cleared itself, and 
among the consequences the cloud which hung over 
Philip the Second has partially lifted. The countrymen 
of Cervantes were not a nation of mere bigots ; yet it is 
clear that the whole Spanish people went with the King 
enthusiastically in defence of the Church, and com- 
plained only when his pie deplomo, his foot of lead that 
he was so proud of, would not move fast enough. The 
romance of Don Carlos has gone into the air of which it 
was made. Don Carlos is known now to have been a 
dangerous lunatic, whom it was necessary to cage like a 
wild animal ; the exact manner of his death is unknown ; 
but his father acted throughout by the advice of the 
Council of State, and it was by their advice also that so 
distressing a secret was concealed from public curiosity. 
As we look at Philip with more impartial attention, the 
figure comes out before us of a painstaking, laborious 
man, prejudiced, narrow-minded, superstitious, with a 
conceit of his own abilities not uncommon in crowned 
heads, and frequently with less justification, but con- 
scientious from his own point of view, and not without 
the feelings of a gentleman. 

I purpose to reconstruct on these more tolerant lines 
the story of the relations between Philip the Second and 
Antonio Perez which have so long perplexed historical in- 
quirers—on the surface a mere palace intrigue, but de- 
veloping from its peculiar features into a nine days' 
wonder throughout Europe, and occasioning, if not 
causing, the overthrow of the constitutional liberties of 
Aragon. 

Students of the history of the sixteenth century must 
be familiar with the name of Gonzalo Perez. He was 
State Secretary to Charles the Fifth, and his signature 
stands at the bottom of the page on thousands of Charles's 



An Unsolved Historical Riddle 95 

despatches which are now extant. When the Emperor 
abdicated, Gonzalo remained in office with Philip, and had 
been forty years in the public service when he died. 
Antonio Perez passed as Gonzalo's natural son. He was 
born in 1542, and was legitimatized immediately by an 
imperial diploma. There were those who said, and 
spoke of it as notorious, that Antonio was not Gonzalo's 
son at all, but the son of Ruy Gomez, Prince of Eboli 
and Duke of Pastrana, Philip's favorite minister. Ruy 
Gomez, at any rate, took charge of the boy, removed 
him from school, brought him up in his own family, and 
introduced him into a public department. Being quick 
and brilliant, he was rapidly promoted ; and when Ruy 
Gomez died in 15G7 he left Antonio, at the age of twenty- 
five, chief secretary to the Council of State, with a salary 
of four thousand ducats a year, in addition to which, 
and as a sinecure, he was Protonotary of Sicily with 
two thousand ducats a year. A rise so swift implied ex- 
traordinary private influence, or extraordinary personal 
qualities ; and this was but the beginning of his fort- 
unes. On losing Ruy Gomez, Philip took Perez as his 
own confidential secretary ; and along with him another 
youth, Juan de Escovedo, who had also been a pupil of 
Ruy Gomez, and had been brought up at Perez's side. 
The two young men had been, and still continued, inti- 
mate personal friends. 

The Spanish administration was divided into separate 
councils, the secretaries of which were each in close rela- 
tion with the King, who insisted on knowing all that 
was going on. Besides these there were the secretaries 
who deciphered despatches, who were thus admitted 
into State mysteries, and were necessarily treated with 
confidence. But of the whole number Antonio Perez 
and Escovedo were nearest to the King, and Perez the 



96 -4/? Unsolved Historical Riddle 

closer of the two. Ho and he alone was admitted into 
the interior labyrinths of Philip's mind. 

He was thus a person of extraordinary consequence. 
He was courted by great men in Church and State. The 
Italian princes sent him presents to advance their inter- 
ests. He was the dispenser of royal favors. He treated 
dukes as his equals, and the splendor in which he lived 
was envied and criticised ; but his legitimate income 
was considerable ; in all countries in that age influential 
statesmen accepted homage in the shape of offerings ; 
and, considering the opportunities the favored secretary 
had, he does not seem to have exceptionally abused 
them. 

Perez being thus upon the stage, we introduce a more 
considerable figure, Don John of Austria, the King's 
brother, illegitimate son of Charles the Fifth. An il- 
legitimate prince is always in a delicate position, espec- 
ially when his father happens to have brought him up 
as a real one. He is of royal blood, but without the 
rights belonging to it. He is uncertain of his rank, 
and may generally be presumed to be discontented. 
But Philip had shown no suspicion of his brother. He 
had trusted him, employed him, refused him no oppor- 
tunities which he could have desired had he come more 
regularly into the world. Don John was chivalrous, 
ardent, ambitious. He had every quality which prom- 
ised distinction, if in his youth he had been wisely 
guided. Buy Gomez had furnished him with a secretary 
supposed to be prudence itself, Juan de Soto, who had 
been trained in the "War Office. Thus accompanied 
when the Moors broke into insurrection, Don John was 
sent to Granada to reduce them. He did his work well ; 
he became a popular favorite, and went next to command 
the allied Catholic fleet in the Mediterranean. De Soto 



An Unsolved Historical Riddle 97 

only had given imperfect satisfaction. Don John had 
high-flying views for himself, and De Soto, it was feared, 
had not sufficiently discouraged them. Perez and Es- 
covedo were instructed to give him an admonition, 
which they did, and with this friendly warning Don 
John and his secretary went their way into Italy. The 
battle of Lepanto followed, and the young irregular 
Spanish prince blazed out into a hero of romance. 
Philip was a faithful son of the Church, and of the Pope 
in his spiritual capacity ; but he was King of Naples 
and Sicily, with interests in the Peninsula not always 
identical with the interests of the court of Rome. Pius 
the Fifth, who had just then absolved England from its 
allegiance to Queen Elizabeth and believed it his mission 
to sweep away heresy, found in Don John a child much 
nearer to his heart. Don John was to be the Church's 
knight, the chosen soldier of the Lord, and immediately 
after Lepanto Pius had formed views for constituting 
him an independent sovereign. Tunis was to be the first 
scene of his greatness. The Emperor Charles had won 
immortal glory in his African campaign. De Soto had 
studied history and dreamt of the possibility of reviving 
the Carthaginian empire. Don John, set on by the 
Pope, refortified the Goleta, and transported on his own 
authority, out of Italy, the best part of the Spanish 
troops there, while the Papal Nuncio at Madrid requested 
Philip in Pope Pius's name to allow his brother to take 
the title of King of Tunis. The Spanish council knew 
better than his Holiness the value of the Emperor's 
African conquests. They had been a drain upon the 
treasury and the grave of thousands of their bravest 
men. Instead of indulging Don John they sent orders 
that the fortresses should be demolished and the troops 
withdrawn. But the order came too late. The Goleta 
7 



98 An Unsolved Historical Middle 

was assaulted by the Turks in overwhelming numbei'S, 
and the garrison was cut off to a man. Philip had good 
reason to be displeased. The independent action of a 
commander cannot expect to be regarded, when unsuc- 
cessful, with especial leniency, nor were matters mended 
by the signs which his brother was manifesting of a 
restless ambition. He replied politely to the Pope, 
however, that the establishment of a kingdom in Tunis 
was not at the time expedient. He found no fault with 
Don John, but laid the blame on bad advisers. He 
gently removed De Soto, leaving him as commissary- 
general of the army ; and secretary Escovedo, who had 
been especially eloquent in the cabinet on De Soto's 
rashness, was sent to take his place as a safer companion 
to the prince. 

Philip, however, was again unfortunate. The mis- 
chance at the Goleta had not been sufficient to dim the 
glories of LejDanto, or cool the hopes which so brilliant a 
victory had inspired. Don John was still persuaded 
that there were great things in store for him. It seemed 
as if he had an especial power of turning the heads of 
the secretaries, and Escovedo himself was soon embarked 
with him in a yet wilder scheme, to which the Pope and 
the Fates were beckoning the way. 

After a struggle of ten years with his revolted sub- 
jects in the Low Countries, experience was beginning 
to teach Philip that it might be expedient to try milder 
ways with them. The Duke of Alva with his blood and 
iron had succeeded only in enlisting the whole of the 
seventeen provinces in a common rebellion, and if the 
war continued, the not unlikely end of it would be that 
Spain would finally lose them all. Holland and Zealand 
might become English, Belgium be absorbed into 
France, and the rest drift away into Germany. Bitter 



An Unsolved Historical Riddle 99 

Catholic as be was, Philip had some qualities of a states- 
man. He had determined on an effort to make up the 
quarrel. The provinces were to be left with their con- 
stitutional rights, securities being given for the safety 
of religion. The Spanish army was to be withdrawn, 
and by abandoning attempts at coercion he hoped that 
it might not be too late to recover the hearts of the 
people. 

To carry out this purpose he had pitched upon his 
brother Don John. The Emperor's memory was still 
honored in the Low Countries. Charles had always 
been more a Fleming than a Spaniard. Don John, with 
his high rank and chivalrous reputation, was likely to 
be welcome there, or at least more welcome than any 
other person who could be selected ; and an oppor- 
tunity was thrown in his way, if he could use it, of win- 
ning laurels for himself more enduring than those which 
grow on battle-fields. 

The opportunity, however, was one which a wise 
man only could appreciate. Young soldiers, especially 
soldiers who have been distinguished in arms, are sel- 
dom in love with constitutions ; and to be governor at 
Brussels, with a council of successful rebels to tie his 
hands, was a situation which would have had no attrac- 
tion for the victor of Lepanto, had there not been at- 
tached to it a more interesting possibility, the empresa de 
Inglaterra, the invasion and conquest of England. Philip 
himself had for a few years been called King of Eng- 
land. His name remains in our Statute Book. It was 
asserted by the Jesuits, it was believed by nine-tenths 
of the orthdox world, that the English Catholics, who 
were two-thirds of the nation, were waiting only for 
the help of a few thousand Spaniards to hurl from the 
throne the excommunicated usurper. The Queen of 



100 An Unsolved Historical liiddle 

Scots, the Lady of Romance, was lying a prisoner in 
Sheffield Castle. To carry over the army when it left 
the Netherlands, to land in Yorkshire, to deliver the 
enchanted princess, and reign at her side with the 
Pope's blessing over an England restored to the faith 
— this was a glorious enterprise, tit to tire the blood of a 
Christian knight who was also the countrymen of Don 
Quixote. 

Don John was still in Italy when the offer of the ap- 
pointment was made. If it was accepted, the King's 
order to him was to proceed with his secretary directly 
to Brussels without returning to Spain. Not the paci- 
fication of Flanders, but the empresa de Inglaterra was 
the thought which rushed into the minds of Don John 
and Escovedo. Instead of setting out as they were en- 
joined, they went to Rome to consult Pope Pius's suc- 
cessor, to ask for his sanction, to ask for men, to ask 
for the title which had been borne by his brother, and 
all this without so much as going through the form of 
consulting his brother on the subject. 

The Pope was of course delighted. If the attempt 
was made, God would not allow it to fail. The Jesuits 
had all along insisted that Philip's dilatoriness had alone 
allowed heresy to take root in England. Philip himself, 
who knew something of the country, wasunder no such 
illusion. Five years before he had consented unwill- 
ingly to the Piidolti conspiracy. Elizabeth was then to 
have been assassinated ; Spanish troops were to have 
landed, and the Queen of Scots was to have had the 
crown. The end of this fine project had been the ex- 
ecution of the Duke of Norfolk, the near escape from 
execution of Mary Stuart, a plague of pirates and pri- 
vateers on the shores of Spanish America, and increased 
severities against the English Catholics. Of the Queen 



An Unsolved Historical Riddh 101 

of Scots Philip had the very worst opinion. To strike 
a blow at that moment at Elizabeth could not fail to re- 
exasperate the Low Countries. English soldiers would 
land in Holland, English corsairs would swarm in the 
Atlantic and seize his treasure ships. 

None of these considerations occurred to Don John 
or his fiery adviser. Escovedo was even hotter than his 
master, and audacious even to insolence. From Rome, 
in spite of his orders, he went to Madrid ; and Don 
John soon after followed him thither, leaving their pur- 
poses to reach Philip indirectly from another quarter. 
This was in the summer of 1576, and we now approach 
the critical part of the story. Shortly after Escovedo 
arrived at the court, the Nuncio sent one morning for 
Antonio Perez and inquired who a certain Escoda was. 
He had been all night, he said, deciphering a despatch 
from his Holiness. It referred to the "enterprise of 
England " which was to be undertaken, if the king 
would allow it, by Don John. Escoda would inform 
him of the particulars. 

" Escoda " could be no one but Escovedo. Perez car- 
ried his information to the King, who was again naturally 
extremely dissatisfied ; the more so perhaps that Don 
John's popularity, and the general favor with which 
Spanish sentiment was likely to take up the adventure, 
obliged him to keep his displeasure to himself. Esco- 
vedo evidently thought himself secure. He addressed 
Philip in so rude a letter that Philip complained of it to 
Perez. "If he had spoken tome as he has written," 
the King said, "I believe I could not have contained 
myself." Words still more rash had fallen from Esco- 
vedo's lips. "Don John, when master of England, was 
afterward to take charge of Spain." 

Philip, like most small - minded men, shrank from 



102 An Unsolved Historical Riddle 

meeting difficulties openly. He took no notice of Esco- 
veclo's impertinence, and lie was afraid or unwilling to 
quarrel with his brother. He allowed the Nuncio to 
give him the Pope's message, and put him off with a 
vague answer. Don John ventured on ground still more 
delicate by ashing for the "chair and canopy,*' the in- 
signia of a legitimate prince of the blood royal Even 
this Philip did not refuse. He required only that Don 
John should repair first to bis government, compose the 
provinces, and withdraw the army. "When this was done 
it would be time to think of "English enterprises" and 
chairs and canopies. 

Don John went, and it seemed as if all was smooth 
again. Escovedo was left at Madrid professedly to com- 
plete some defective arrangements for his master. Per- 
haps Philip was uncertain whether he would trust so 
doubtful an adviser at Lis brother's side any more. 

I am not writing the history of the wars in the Nether- 
lands ; it is enough to say that any hopes which had 
been built on the popularity of Don John were disap- 
pointed. The Estates refused to admit him as governor 
while the Spanish troops were in the fortresses ; the 
troops were sullen, and would not move till they were 
paid their wages. Don John wished to remove them by 
sea, meaning, when they were in the Channel, to fly at 
England permitted or unpermitted ; but Elizabeth and 
the Prince of Orange had their eyes open ; the Estates 
insisted that the army should retire by land, and de- 
clined to advance a dollar till they were on the march. 
Don John, being without a friend whom he could trust, 
begged that Escovedo might rejoin him ; and Escovedo, 
not without emphatic warnings and reiterated instruc- 
tions, was allowed to go. The demands of the Estates 
were to be complied with to the letter. The army, at 



An Unsolved Historical Riddle 103 

whatever sacrifice of bolder purposes, was to retire as 
the Estates desired. Philip required peace and was pre- 
pared for the price that was to be paid for it. The 
humiliation was too deep for Don John. For the knight 
errant of the Church to retreat before a burgher council 
was ignominy. Something, he knew not what, must be 
done to repair it, and his thoughts went everywhere 
except where they ought to have been. Escovedo had 
no sooner arrived than a secret correspondence began 
again with the Pope. The religious war was raging in 
France. Don John might join the Duke of Guise and 
the Catholic League, and they might manage England 
between them. Then again he thought how he might 
satisfy his ambition at home. On February 3, 1577, 
Escovedo wrote to Perez to revive the request for the 
chair and canopy. It would give Don John a seat in the 
Council of State. He and Perez and their friends, the 
Archbishop of Toledo and the Marques de los Velez, 
could rule the country as they pleased, and relieve his 
brother of the cares of government. On reflection he 
perhaps remembered that Philip might not be so anxious 
to be relieved ; for some days after the purpose was 
changed ; Don John was to take his army into France 
as an adventurer, and help the Duke of Guise to destroy 
the Huguenots. Victorious there, he could hold the 
Estates in check, the shame of the retreat would be 
covered, and the "great design" on England could go 
forward. Koyal princes are excused their follies at the 
expense of their servants. These feverish dreams were 
set down at the Escurial to Escovedo's account, and 
probably with excellent reason. 

Meanwhile, Philip's orders were being obeyed. He 
had agreed to all which the Estates demanded. On 
February 12 the arrangement known as the " Perpetual 



104 An Unsolved Historical RidMt 

Edict" was provisionally accepted, and was forwarded to 
Madrid for ratification. Don John was distracted. He 
believed that he might write to Perez confidentially ; for 
Perez, by Philip's order, had encouraged him to suppose 
so ; and much eloquence has been expended on the as- 
sumed treachery. But kings may be judged too harshly 
in such matters, when they have reason to fear that per- 
sons whom they have trusted are playing tricks with them. 
If Don John was acting loyally, he had nothing to fear. 
After the edict was sent off, Don John wrote again to 
Perez that he must resign. Sooner than remain to govern 
Flanders on such conditions, he would turn hermit. If 
the King insisted on keeping him there he would be- 
come desperate, fling up the reins and go home, though 
he lost his life for it. He implored that he might not be 
driven to choose between disobedience and infamy. 

Perez showed Philip all these letters ; and they were 
considered in the cabinet. The blame was laid on Es- 
covedo, who was held to have betrayed his trust. Don 
John was informed kindly, but peremptorily, that his 
return at such a time would be prejudicial to the public 
service. No one could be so fit as the King's brother to 
recover the loyalty of the Estates. The King said that 
he understood his feelings, and could sympathize with 
him ; but he must try to be patient ; least of all must 
he rush off into France where the Government had not 
asked for his assistance. The English project and his 
other wishes should be considered when the time for 
them was come ; but his present duty was to reconcile 
Flanders, and there he must remain. Escovedo had 
spoken of returning himself to speak to the King. 
Perez told him that if he came back without permission 
it would be taken as a serious offence, and was not to 
be thought of. 



An Unsolved Historical liiddle 105 

Don John acquiesced, or seemed to acquiesce. The 
Perpetual Edict was ratified. The troops began the 
evacuation, and on May 2 Don John was received at 
Brussels, and installed as governor. Had he been sin- 
cere, the storm would have blown over ; but the next 
news which arrived about him at Madrid was that he 
had actually made a private treaty with the Court of 
Rome. The Pope had promised him 6,000 men and 
150,000 ducats for the English expedition, while before 
the Brussels settlement had lasted a fortnight he was 
again in correspondence with the Duke of Guise, and 
was threatening open hostilities against Holland and 
Zealand, which were making difficulties about liberty 
of worship. The difficulty need not have been insuper- 
able ; and the Estates refused to sanction immediate 
violence. Den John snatched at the excuse to break 
with them on his own authority ; with such regiments 
as had not yet gone, he seized Namur ; and Escovedo, 
in spite of his positive orders, rushed home after all, 
to press Philip to allow the army to return. The war 
should then be carried on in earnest. The Spanish 
forces could live in the rebel provinces as in an enemy's 
country, and lay them waste with fire and sword. 

Information more unwelcome never reached Philip. 
He longed for peace ; he had been actiug in good faith ; 
he refused to counter-order the troops ; he blamed the 
seizure of Namur, and abhorred the very mention of fire 
and sword. Still at the eleventh hour he clung to the 
hope of reconciliation. The Estates declared Don John 
a public enemy, and invited the Archduke Matthias to 
take his place. Even so, Philip persevered. He sent a 
commission to offer a complete amnesty, with the instant 
and perpetual removal of the army. The Estates might 
choose their own governor, either the Archduke Mat- 



106 An Unsolved Historical Riddle 

thias, or the Archduke Ferdinand, or the Prince of 
Parma. But it was too late ; the day for peace was gone. 
Confidence was irrecoverably lost, and the quarrel had 
to be fought out to the end. The army went back — 
there was no help for it — with the Prince of Parma at 
its head ; while it was said and believed that Don John 
was treating with the Duke of Guise for an open alli- 
ance, without regard to their respective sovereigns — 
a very strange aud questionable performance. Both 
Guise and Philip were no doubt defending the Catholic 
religion. But respect for forms and secular interests 
were not to pass for nothing. Spain and France were 
the rivals for Continental supremacy. They had been 
at war off and on for three-quarters of a century, and, if 
the religious question was settled, might at any time be 
at war again. Philip had not forgotten that it was a 
Duke of Guise who had defended Metz against his 
father ; and for his brother to take on himself to settle 
points of international policy with the subject of another 
sovereign, was something not very far removed from 
treason. 

But we must now return to the scapegoat who was to 
bear the blame for all these things, the unlucky Esco- 
vedo. Flying home, as we saw him, in the teeth of a 
positive command, he landed at Santander on July 21. 
The worst had not yet happened ; for it was not till the 
January following that the commission went with the 
last overtures for peace, nor was the treating with Guise 
as yet more than an unpleasant rumor. But Philip was 
legitimately incensed with Escovedo, and, if we can be- 
lieve M. Mignet, had prepared a peculiar recej^tion for 
him ; nay, was expecting that Escovedo was coming 
with murderous intentions against himself. Perez hav- 
ing informed the King in a note of Escovedo's approach, 



An Unsolved Historical Riddle 107 

Philip, according to bis habit, and in his well-known 
abominable hand, scrawled on the margin, " Menester 
sera prevenir nos bien de todo y dar nos mucha priesa 
a despacharle antes que nos mate." The verb "de- 
spachar," like its English correspondent " despatch," 
has two meanings, and " matar " has two meanings. 
M. Mignet supposes the words to mean, " We must be 
quick and assassinate him before he kills us." He 
makes Philip suspect Escovedo of intended treason, and 
resolve to be beforehand with him. But no one would 
have thought of so interpreting the passage if Escovedo 
had not in fact been assassinated at a later period. The 
natural translation would be, " We must despatch him 
quickly (i.e. send him about his business) before he 
worries us to death;" and as Escovedo remained, for 
some months after his arrival, not only unmolested, but 
transacting business with the King, I cannot infer, with 
M. Mignet, that Philip had already formed so sanguinary 
a purpose against him. Unquestionably, however, no 
good will was felt toward a man who had responded so 
ill to the confidence which had been placed in him. If 
Philip could have conveniently punished him without 
irritating his brother, he would gladly have read him a 
sharp lesson, and the irritation was likely to be increased 
as the consequences of his misdoings developed them- 
selves. The especial uneasiness was on the side of 
France. In the autumn (1577), three months after 
Escovedo's arrival, Philip sent a new ambassador there, 
Juan de Vargas Mexia, to inquire particularly into what 
was passing between his brother and the Duke of 
Guise. Mexia ascertained that the correspondence was 
real, and that secret agents were going to and fro be- 
tween them, though to what purpose he could not tell. 
The suspicious feature was the complete silence on the 



10S An Unsolved Historical Riddle 

subject both of Don John and bis secretary. Escovedo's 
manners were abrupt and arbitrary. In January Philip 
received a letter from him, which he described happily 
as clescosido, loose, unstitched, visionary. He handed it 
to Perez, that he might see how "sanguinary" it was. 

Don John, at the reopening of the war, had begun 
with a success. He had defeated the Prince of Orange 
at Gemblonrs. He wrote passionately for reinforce- 
ments. The victory had to be followed up, and all 
would be won. He demanded money — money and Es- 
covedo. Philip, unhappily, had won victories before in 
the Low Countries, and knew better what to expect from 
them. His own more temperate policy had been 
thwarted and ruined, and it was but too natural that he 
should hold his brother's wild adviser as responsible. 
If he sent him back, it would be only to throw fuel on 
the fire. Don John, and the Pope, and the Guises would 
set all Europe in confusion. Escovedo was no fool. He 
could not be kept waiting at Madrid with dilatory ex- 
cuses. To imprison him, or bring him to trial, might 
drive Don John at once into some dangerous course. 
It would lead to investigations and the publication of 
State secrets which ought not to be revealed. 

Thei'e was a theory much in favor at the Spanish 
court, that criminals who had forfeited their lives, or per- 
sons whose lives were for any reason inconsistent with 
public safety, might, when the facts were certain, and 
when an open prosecution would be inconvenient, be 
removed privately by orders of the Council of State. So 
Don Carlos had been disposed of ; so the Flemish envoy 
at Simancas. Spain was not the only country where in 
extreme cases such proceedings were held permissible. 
Elizabeth would have been grateful to Sir Amyas Paulet 
if he would have relieved her of the Queen of Scots. In 



An Unsolved Historical Riddle 109 

Italy, in France, in Scotland, a stab with a dagger was an 
expedient adopted in emergencies, 'with no great care to 
ascertain that it was deserved. Spain and England 
were rather in advance of other nations than behind 
them ; and in Spain, heartily loyal as it was, the public 
had begun to doubt whether these secret executions 
ought to be continued. 

A zealous court preacher had maintained, in a sermon 
at which Philip was present, that kings had absolute 
power over the lives and fortunes of their subjects. The 
Inquisition, of all courts in the world, took up the ques- 
tion. The preacher was obliged to retract his propo- 
sition in the same pulpit, and to confess that kings 
had no more power over their subjects than divine and 
human law allowed them. The old view, however, held 
its ground in spite of the Holy Office, and was professed 
in its extreme form by no less a person than the King's 
spiritual adviser, the same Diego de Chaves who was 
mentioned at the opening of our story. Don Diego's 
opinion was this : " So far as I understand the law," he 
said, " a secular prince who for sufficient cause can 
take his subjects' lives from them by course of law can 
also do it without course of law when the evidence of 
the guilt is clear. Form and order are not essentials in 
such sense that they cannot be dispensed with ; and if 
the prince has sufficient reasons for proceeding irregu- 
larly, the vassal who by his command puts to death 
another vassal is doing no more than his duty. He is 
bound to assume the cause to be adequate. The pre- 
sumption in all cases is that the prince has reason for 
what he does." 

This doctrine was still held by Philip ; and the diffi- 
culty with Escovedo was precisely of the kind where the 
application of it was convenient. Escovedo's guilt 



110 An Unsolved Historical Riddle 

might be assumed. He was a confidential minister who 
had disobeyed his orders, and had caused a great public 
calamity, involving the renewal of a civil war. If allowed 
to live, he would still be dangerous. To briug him to 
an account opeuly would be dangerous also. Philip 
directed Autouio Perez to consult the Marques de los 
Yelez. The opinion of the inarquis was decided, that 
Escovedo should be killed ; yet that the King must not 
appear to have directed his execution, lest Don John 
should be exasperated. Some scheme should be con- 
trived by which it could appeal' that he had been sacri- 
ficed to private revenge. A Government must have been 
singularly helpless which could have recourse to such 
expedients. But so it was. For the act itself De los 
Yelez had so little hesitation that, "with the Sacrament 
in his mouth," he was ready to assert the necessity of it 
The best method, he thought, would be to give Esco- 
vedo " something to eat " from which he should not re- 
cover. 

There was nothing in such a proposal to disturb Phi- 
lip's ignoble conscientiousness. He sincerely believed 
that by consenting he was discharging a public duty, 
and with no more personal resentment than if he had 
been signing a warrant for an ordinary execution. It 
has never been suggested that Philip had any private 
malice against Escovedo. or had any motive beyond 
what was afterward alleged. Why Antonio Perez 
should have encouraged him, why he should himself 
have so readily undertaken a treacherous office, is an- 
other question on which speculation has been busy. He 
had been Eseovedo's personal friend. They had grown 
up as boys together in the family of Buy Gomez. They 
had been transferred together to the King's service. They 
had never differed politically until Escovedo had become 



An Unsolved Historical Riddle 111 

Don John's secretary, and they had corresponded after- 
ward on terms of the closest intimacy. It is true that 
Perez had been the strongest advocate for a policy of 
peace, and Escovedo for war ; but an antagonism of 
opinion scarcely explains the readiness with which one 
Secretary of State undertook to murder another. And 
it has been assumed as a matter of course that Perez 
must have had some private motives of his own. 

Before entering into these dark regions I will describe 
briefly what actually happened. The " something to eat " 
was administered as De los Velez recommended. Perez 
took into his confidence his own master of the household, 
Diego Martinez ; he told him that the King and council 
considered Escovedo's life to be dangerous to the peace 
of Europe, and that Escovedo must be secretly made 
away with. To satisfy Martinez's scruples he showed 
him a letter in the King's hand. Enriquez, a page, was 
also admitted into the mystery. An apothecary was 
found far away in Aragon who could mix a potion, and 
Escovedo was invited to dinner. Two or three experi- 
ments were tried with imperfect success. The unlucky 
wretch became very ill after swallowing a dish of cream 
with some white powder in it ; but he had not taken 
enough. He suspected foul play, and afterward dined 
alone in his apartments in the palace. A page in the 
palace kitchen was bribed to put a larger dose into a 
plate which was sent up to him. Escovedo discovered 
the poison, and an innocent slave girl who had dressed 
the dish was strangled in the Plaza at Madrid. 

The fate of this poor creature, so piteous because so 
utterly undeserved, passed as a mere incident ; Perez 
scarcely gave a second thought to it, and the King's con- 
science could not descend to a kitchen wench. But 
poison, it was clear, could not be depended on ; and 



112 An Unsolved Historical Riddle 

steel was a surer method. Eseovedo's habits were 
watched. He was out much after dark, and returned 
late to his apartments. Bravoea were brought up by 
the exertions of Diego Martiuez from remote parts of 
the Peninsula. Easter had come, and Perez, to be out 
of the way, wont for the Holy Week to Aleala de Henaivs. 
On the night of Easter Monday, March 31, 1578, Don 
John's secretary was run through the body in a public 
street, and was killed on the spot. 

Madrid was an orderly city, and open assassinations 
were unusual. A person, himself of so much consequence, 
and the notorious favorite of a prince who was the idol 
of the people, could not be found lying dead without a 
considerable stir being caused by it. The police were 
out like hornets. The gates were guarded, and no one 
was allowed to pass. The hotels and lodging-houses 
were called on for a list of their guests. The assassins 
were out of reach, for they were secreted in Perez's 
own house, and no clue could be found ; yet suspicion 
at once and instinctively pointed to Perez as the instiga- 
tor, and his absence at Aleala was not enough to clear 
him. His wife, Juana Coello, called to condole with 
Eseovedo's widow. The widow had not forgotten the 
dinners and the illness which followed, and the detected 
attempts at poison. She said significantly she feared 
the blow had been aimed by a friend's hand. Perez 
hurried back to the capital, pretending to be horrified. 
He saw Eseovedo's son. He told the alcalde of the court 
that Escovedo had many enemies ; there were rumors 
of a love affair in Flanders ; Escovedo, he knew, had 
lately received a message, bidding him beware of some 
jealous Fleming. Perhaps he overacted his part. The 
alcalde and the alcalde's son, Garcia de Arce, cross-ques- 
tioned him unpleasantly. The King was out at the 



An Unsolved Historical Riddle 113 

Escurial, where, of course, reports reached him from the 
magistrates ; but he was anxious for particulars. On 
April 3, three days after the murder, Perez wrote to him, 
and a copy of the letter survives, with Philip's marginal 
remarks upon it. Perez told him what had passed with 
the alcalde, and mentioned what he had said about the 
love affair. Philip noted, "This was very right." Garcia 
de Arce had asked Perez whether there had been a 
quarrel between him and Escovedo, implying that he 
had heard something to that effect from Escovedo's 
wife. Philip observed, "There will be danger from that 
woman." " The alcalde," Perez said, "had discovered 
that strange things had been going on during the winter 
in Escovedo's house ; mysterious visitors, night expedi- 
tions none knew where, and secret boxes of papers, and 
keys of other people's houses." Philip, who evidently 
looked on himself as a careful, well-intentioned prince, 
who had disposed of a public enemy in a skilful man- 
ner, thought more of Escovedo's plots than of awkward 
consequences from his murder. He remarked that these 
keys and visits had a bad complexion ; the alcalde must 
look more closely into that matter, and search it to the 
bottom. Perez was uncomfortable about his bravoes, 
whom he knew not how to dispose of. He had thought 
of sending them away with despatches as Government 
couriers; but it seemed too dangerous. He recom- 
mended Philip to put the inquiry into the alcalde's 
hands exclusively, and to forbid any other person to 
meddle with it. Philip prudently observed that to in- 
terfere with the investigation would provoke suspicion. 
He would communicate with the alcalde, and would do 
what he could. The bravoes must be kept for the pres- 
ent where they were, and Perez meanwhile might come 
out to the Escurial to see him. Finally, to quiet Perez's 



11-i An Unto! re J Historical Riddle 

evident alarm, lie said: "If Escovedo's widow desires 
to speak -with me, I cannot refuse to see her ; but do 
not tear that you will be unsupported. I am with you, 
and will not fail you in anything that may be expedient 
or necessary. Assure yourself of this. You know it 
well." 

There is no doubt at all that in the last extremity, 
and if Perez's life was in danger, Philip intended hon- 
estly to tell the truth. 

Strong, however, as suspicion was, suspicion was not 
proof ; and proof against Perez there was none. He had 
been many miles from Madrid when the murder was 
committed. His servants, Diego Martinez and Enriquez, 
knew that they had been acting by the King's authority. 
They had everything to gain by keeping counsel, and 
might be in serious danger if they betrayed their secret. 
The bravoes slipped away after a week or two, when 
the vigilance had relaxed. Each of them had a bag of 
doubloons with a commission as alferez (ensign in the 
army, unattached). They dispersed to Italy, to Central 
Europe, to all the winds. Every trace was thus swept 
out which could connect Perez with the murder. The 
excitement died gradually away, and the affair seemed 
to be forgotten. 

But poisoned wounds will not heal, though they bo 
skinned over. The sore was to break out again, and the 
story to assume a form which has given it a place among 
the causes ceUbres of the world. 

Brilliant writers of history are subject to one gen- 
eral temptation — they desire to give their narrative dra- 
matic completeness. The drama, if it is to have flavor, 
must revolve upon personal motives, and history must 
follow on the same lines. Sovereigns and statesmen 
who have been charged with the fortunes of nations, are 



An Unsolved Historical Riddle 115 

assumed, where their actions require explanation, to Lave 
been influenced by no other passions than those which 
govern private individuals in their own more limited 
spheres. When a woman's name appears as connected 
with such high persons, the connection is always assumed 
to have been of one peculiar kind. To ask for evidence 
or look for other explanations is taken as a sign of sim- 
plicity or of ignorance of human nature. 

The legend now stereotyped in European tradition 
is that the wife of Ruy Gomez, the Princess of Eboli, 
was the mistress of Philip the Second, and that the 
Princess of Eboli preferred Antonio Perez to the King. 
Escovedo, it is said, discovered the intrigue and threat- 
ened to reveal it. Perez, in consequence, calumniated 
Escovedo to Philip. Philip allowed him to be murdered, 
but discovered afterward that he had been the dupe of 
a treacherous minister and a bad woman, and regarded 
Perez thenceforward with implacable hatred. 

Now, before going further, I have to observe that the 
eleven years during which Philip is assumed to have 
been occupied with these emotions and the effort to give 
effect to them, were the busiest in the whole of his long, 
laborious reign. They were the years in which he an- 
nexed Portugal. They were the years of Parma's ad- 
ministration of the Netherlands. They were the years 
of preparation for the Armada. There was the civil war 
in France to be watched and guided. There were Na- 
ples and Sicily to be ruled, and the Turks to be held in 
check in the Mediterranean. There were the ambassa- 
dors' despatches from foreign courts. There was a close, 
constant, and elaborate correspondence to be maintained 
with the Pope. There were the reports of the Inquisi- 
tion to be received and studied. There were English, 
Scotch, and Irish Catholic conspiracies to be kept in 



116 An Unsolved Historical Riddle 

hand. There was the great new empire across the At- 
lantic, an J Drake and Hawkins, and the English corsairs. 
There were the various Councils of State for the inter- 
nal administration at home, and in every one of these 
departments Philip not only interfered, but exercised the 
most unrelaxing supervision. "Whether he did his work 
well or ill is not to the purpose ; mind and body were 
incessantly engaged upon it. Minutes of council, tens 
of thousands of ciphered despatches with rough drafts 
of as many ciphered answers to them, survive to witness 
to the industry of a sovereign who permitted nothing to 
be done without his knowledge in all his enormous do- 
minions. There is scarcely one of these documents which 
is not annotated in his hand, and often elaborately ; and 
students who, like myself, have toiled through these 
mountains of papers, have cursed the writing, the worst 
perhaps that ever was seen, but have had to confess, when 
the meaning was arrived at, that the meaning was a real 
and often a wise one. The poor King did patiently en- 
deavor to understand the subjects before him, and to 
resolve upon them with the best efforts of his limited 
ability ; while if the working hours of every day had been 
doubled, and thus doubled had been devoted all to duty, 
they would still seem insufficient for the business which 
he demonstrably got through. 

That a mind so occupied should have had leisure to 
trouble itself with " jealousies " and " mistresses," or in- 
deed to give more than a passing thought to the Escovedo 
affair at all after the public dangers from him had ceased, 
is to me not easily conceivable, for the simple reason 
that there was no time for it. The King was occupied 
all but exclusively with other matters. The murder was 
an angry spot which would not heal ; he had fallen into 
a scrape, and his behavior was singular ; but it can be 



An Unsolved Historical Riddle 111 

more easily explained by clumsy efforts to extricate him- 
self than by a romance of which nine-tenths is conject- 
ure, and the tenth remaining inconsistent with admitted 
facts. 

It is, however, true that the Princess of Eboli was 
soon supposed to have been connected in some way with 
Escovedo's assassination. The widow of Escovedo knew 
that high words had passed between her husband and 
Antonio Perez, in which the name of the Princess had 
been mentioned. Perez had been more successful in life 
than his companion officials, and had borne himself in 
his prosperity with less moderation than prudence would 
have recommended. One of these, a priest named Mat- 
teo Vasquez, and himself one of Philip's secretaries, 
disliked Perez, and was also employed in some law-suit 
against the Princess. He sought out Escovedo's family 
and learned what they had to tell. He was busy all the 
summer and the winter following pushing his inquiries, 
and thought at last that he had made a notable discovery. 
In December, nine months after the murder, he wrote 
and circulated an anonymous pasquil, full of scandalous 
reflections on Perez and the lady, while simultaneously 
Escovedo's widow and her son directly charged Perez 
with the crime, adding that it had been committed to 
gratify the Princess of Eboli. Perez carried the pasquil 
to Philip — a daring act on his part, if he knew himself to 
be the King's successful rival. Philip again assured him, 
both by word and writing, that he need not be uneasy, 
that no harm should befall him ; but Perez knew his 
master well ; he knew his unwillingness that his own 
share in the matter should be made public, and he ob- 
served that Philip seemed not displeased that Vasquez 
and the Escovedos should be running on a false scent. 

It is time, therefore, to say a few words about this fa- 



IIS An Unsolved Historical Riddle 

mous lady ; to tell who she was, and how she came to 
be concerned in a matter which appeared to be wholly 
political. 

Doiia Ana, widow of Kuy Gomez, Prince of Eboli, 
was the only child of Don Diego Hurtado, chief of the 
great house of Mendoza. There were many Mendozas in 
the Spanish peerage. Don Diego's was the eldest branch. 
On her father's death a part, but not all, of the inher- 
itance descended to the daughter. She was Princess of 
Eboli as her husband's widow. Her eldest son, a youth 
of twenty or thereabouts, was Duke of Pastrana and 
Prince of Melito. She had five younger children. One 
of them, a daughter, was married to Alonzo the Good, 
Duke of Medina Sidonia, known to history as the ad- 
miral of the Armada. Family disputes seem to have 
arisen about Don Diego's succession. Some suit was 
pending between her and other members of the family. 
The Princess was detaining money, jewels, and other 
possessions, to which her relatives laid claim ; and the 
quarrel was further complicated by the political lean- 
ings of the young Prince of Melito. who had deserted 
the old party of his father, Ruy Gomez, and had gone 
over to the Duke of Alva. 

The Princess herself was now thirty-eight years old. 
She had lost one eye, and was otherwise not beautiful ; 
but she was energetic, imperious, with considerable 
talents, and able, if she pleased, to be fascinating. That 
she had been Philip's mistress was an Italian scandal ; 
nothing had then been heard of it in Spain ; but Perez 
gave mysterious hints that the King would have been 
more intimate with her if she had encouraged him. 
Auy way, she had lost Philip's favor. "Visitors at the 
Eboli palace were frowned upon at the Escurial ; the 
world said that the King was irritated at the rejection 



An Unsolved Historical Riddle 119 

of his advances,* and that " wishes unsatisfied were more 
exasperating than a thousand offences." 

This was perhaps but court gossip ; but, whether fact 
or legend, it is certain on the other hand that the rela- 
tions between the Princess and Antonio Perez were in- 
timate and even affectionate. He had been her hus- 
band's adopted son. The Princess professed to believe 
that Ruy Gomez was his real father, and to her Perez's 
devotion was unconcealed and unbounded. He describes 
in an enigmatic letter the position in which he stood 
toward her. M. Mignet says that there can be no doubt 
of his meaning, and rushes to a preconceived conclusion. 
The letter is intentionally obscure, the press is uncor- 
rected, and the text in parts is hopeless. But he alludes 
to the suggestion that he was the Princess's lover only 
to fling it from him with disgust. His love was for his 
own wife, whose attachment to him is the finest feature 
in the whole of this distracted story. The Princess of 
Eboli he worshipped as a being beyond his sphere. He 
spoke of her as " a jewel enamelled in the rarest graces 
of nature and fortune." To her husband he owed all 
that he had become, and he repaid his debt by helping 
his widow in her difficulties. He made her large ad- 
vances of money, he collected her rents from Italy ; she 
in turn made him handsome presents ; but that either 
with the King or with Perez the Princess had any per- 
sonal intrigue is a romantic imagination like the legend 
of Don Carlos aud his stepmother. \ 

* "Por vivir el Rey offendido de la antigua y continua duracion de la 
entereza de la Princesa de Eboly haciendole menosprecio." — Relation 
de Antonio Perez. 

t There is no evidence for it except what is supposed to lie in the 
letter of Antonio Perez " a un Gran Personage," which formed part of 
his public defence. What that letter means it is impossible to say, or 
even what it was intended to suggest. Perez says that the King dis- 



120 An Unsolved Historical Riddle 

It was but natural, under the circumstances, that the 
Meudoza family should bear no love to Perez, because 
in the feuds which had arisen he was taking the Prin- 
cess's side. The Prince of Melito had threatened to run 
him through the body. The Marques de Fabara and 
the Conde de Cifuentes called one day on the Princess, 
and were kept waiting because she was closeted with 
the Secretary. Both of them thought that such a fellow 
was not tit to live. Eseovedo. it came out, had taken 
the opposite side to Perez. He, too. had been brought 
up by Kuy Gomez, and claimed a right to interfere in 
defence of his old master's honor. He had disapproved 
of the acquaintance ; he had said that it must and should 
be put an end to ; and he had spoken to the Princess 
with so rude a tongue, that she called him a foul-mouthed 
villain. 

A quarrel of this kind explains the ease with which 
Perez consented to kill Eseovedo. We know no actual 
good of Perez, and there would have been nothing sur- 
prising if, out of revenge, he really had misled the King 
into thinking Eseovedo more guilty than he was. But 
the attempt to prove it broke down ; Philip had been 
influenced by Don John's and Escovedo's own despatches, 
which had been deciphered by another hand ; and never 
to the last felt certain that his secretary had in this mat- 
ter deceived him. Some personal resentment there was. 
and the Princess was in some way the occasion of it, but 
in fact Philip's conduct requires no secret passion to 
make it intelligible. He did not doubt, at least at first, 
that he had done right, but he was unwilling to admit 

approved of the intimacy between himself and the Princess, and that 
there was a mystery connected with this. But a mystery was not 

necessarily a love affair, nor does it follow that there was a mystery be- 
cause such a person, as Peiez wished to make himself interesting by 
hinting at one. 



An Unsolved Historical Riddle 121 

the truth. He had to maintain his respectability, and. 
therefore, would not try to prevent the Escovedoa and 
their friends from prosecuting their complaints, while 
he was not ill-pleased that their suspicions should run 
wide of himself, and fasten in a quarter where he knew 
that there was nothing to be discovered. It was just 
the course which small, commonplace cunning would 
naturally pursue. The Marques de los Yelez could not 
understand it ; he did not like the look of things, and 
applied for the governorship of Peru ; Perez offered to 
retire from the public service and satisfy his enemies 
thus ; but the King refused to accept Perez's resigna- 
tion ; he said that he could not spare him ; he reiterated, 
on the word of a gentleman, "that he would never for- 
sake him, and that Perez knew his word could be de- 
pended on." 

More and more loudly Matteo Yasquez and the Esco- 
vedos demanded a trial. The King could not directly 
refuse. Perez himself advised acquiescence ; the actual 
assassins, he said, were beyond reach of discovery ; there 
was no evidence ; he was ready to face the prosecution ; 
the name of the Princess need not be mentioned. 
Philip, however, had a conscience above perjury ; he 
was not ashamed to admit what he had done, if it was 
known only to discreet persons who could be safely 
trusted. The case was to be heard before the High 
Court of Castile. The King sent for Don Antonio de 
Pazos, who was then President, told him everything, and 
asked his advice. The President thought that the 
prosecution must be silenced ; he informed young 
Escovedo that if he insisted on justice he should have 
it, but he was accusing persons of high rank in the 
State ; his charge, if he failed to make it good, would 
recoil on himself ; and he assured him on the word of a 



122 An Unsolved Historical Riddle 

priest that Perez and the Princess were as innocent as 
himself. "With Matteo Vasquez the President was more 
peremptory. Vasquez, he said, was no relation of Esco- 
vedo's ; his interference, especially as he was a priest, 
was gratuitous and unbecoming ; on the facts he was 
mistaken altogether. The Escovedos yielded and prom- 
ised to go no further ; Vasquez was obstinate, and per- 
sisted. Public curiosity had been excited ; it was felt 
instinctively that the King was in the secret, and there 
was now a widespread desire to know what that se- 
cret was. Vasquez hated Perez and the Princess also, 
and made himself the representative of the popular 
anxiety. 

Philip had been contented that opinion should run in 
a false direction ; and he had hoped to prevent too close 
an inquiry by his confidence with the President. He had 
failed, and he had seemed to wish in consequence to 
silence Vasquez, and, if possible, to reconcile him with 
the Princess, whom he had calumniated. But now the 
difficulty was on her side. She, the greatest lady in 
Spain after the Queen, had been insulted and slandered ; 
it was not for her to leave a cloud upon her name by 
stooping to take the hand of her accuser. The Cardinal 
Archbishop of Toledo was sent to reason with her, but 
the Archbishop was too much of her own opinion to 
make an impression on her indignation. She had already 
a long catalogue of grievances, and this last insult was 
too much. She wrote Philip a letter, which she showed 
to Perez, and Perez preserved it. 

" SeSor : — Your Majesty has commanded the Cardinal of 
Toledo to speak with me in the matter of Antonio Perez. 
Matteo Vasquez and his friends have said openly that all who 
enter my house lose your favor. They have stated also that 



An Unsolved Historical Riddle 123 

Antonio Perez killed Escovedo on my account ; that he was 
under so many obligations to my family, that he would do 
whatever I asked him. They have published abroad these 
speeches ; and I require your Majesty, as a king and a gentle- 
man, to take such notice of this conduct as the world shall 
hear of. If your Majesty declines, if the honor of my house 
is to be sacrificed, as our property has been sacrificed, if this 
is to be the reward of the long and faithful services of my 
ancestors, be it so. I have discharged my conscience ; self- 
respect forbids me to say more. 

" I write to your Majesty in resentment at the offences 
which I have received, and I write in confidence, supposing 
myself to be addressing a gentleman. 

" The President presses me about a letter which I wrote to 

your Majesty, touching bribes taken by (word omitted). 

I am charged with having said something of the Duke 

of . My character suffers from these tokens of your 

Majesty's good-will. Though justice is on my side, my suit 
is before a tainted tribunal ; I shall lose it and be put out of 
possession. When I ask the President why he acts thus toward 
me, he says that your Majesty will have it so. Melchior de 
Herrera (?) allows that I am right ; but he swears me to this 
and that, and pretends that it is your pleasure. You have 
sent him a memorial from Don Inigo.* Why am I to be 
twice memorialized ? It is important to me to withdraw the 
security under which I and my children are bound for Don 
Inigo. He has broken his obligations, and may leave Valla- 
dolid. Antonio de Padilla confesses that it is so ; but your 
Majesty forbids him to interfere. If this is true, I may as 
well abandon my suit, and my children too. This is the 
natural conclusion from the position which you assume to- 
ward me. When I reflect what my husband's merits were, 
such treatment would make me lose my senses did I not need 
them all to guard myself from this Mooiish cur (Matteo Vas- 
quez) whom your Majesty keeps in your service. I demand 
that neither I nor any of mine may be placed in that man's 

power." 

* Inigo de Mendoza, Marquis of Almenara. 



124 An Cu** let J Historical Riddle 

I have given tins letter, though it strays far beyond 
our immediate subject, because it shows how imperfectly 
the circumstances are known to us which surround the 
story ; and how idle it is for us to indulge imagination 
beyond what is written. Long avenues of questions lie 
open before us, which must remain forever unanswered, 
yet in the answer to which alone can lie a complete i \- 
planation of the relatious between the Princess of Eboli 
and the King of Spain. 

Submit to be reconciled with the "Moorish cur" it 

was plain she would not. He had circulated slanders 

-t her in the court, and she insisted that he should 

withdraw them.* Perez was obstinate, too, for his 

*This article lr.nl been written, and was partly in typo, before I had 
seen the int resting work, lately published, on the Prineess of Eboli, 
by Don Gaspar Mora Although the documents discovered by Hon 
Gaspar have added largely to our knowledge of the secret history of the 
Princess, 1 have found it unnecessary to withdraw or alter any opinion 
which 1 had formed. I have had the pleasure of iinding my own con- 
jectures for the most part confirmed and converted into certainties by 
evidence not open to dispute. Don Gaspar has disproved conclusively 
the imagined liaison between the Princess and Philip the Second. He 
continues to believe that improper relations existed between her and 
Antonio Perez; but as he alleges not] ing fresh in proof of it beyond 
what was already known, I look on this as no more than part of the 
old legend which has continued to adhere to Don Caspar with no more 
authority for it than tradition. The passionate love which existed be- 
tween Perez and his own wire is inconsistent with a belief, at least on 
her parr, that any such relation had been formed. Be this as it may, 
however, Don Gaspar has proved that the jealousy of which Peres 
speaks, as having governed Philip's was no jealousy of the 

preference of Perez to himself by the Prineess, but a jealousy of the in- 
fluence of a woman, with whom he was on the worst possible terms, 
over his own secretary. Don Gaspar has found and printed more than 
a hundred letters of Matteo Vasquez. whose connection with the Esco- 
vedo prosecution was so close, arid had hitherto been so unintelligible. 
wn was in some way interested in the great lawsuits which the 
Princess was carrying on. In all that related to her Matteo Yasquez 
was as deep in Philip's confidence as Antonio Perez in the wider world 
of politics. His relations with each of them were carefully concealed 



An Unsolved Historical Iliddle 125 

honor was touched. The xlrchbishop of Toledo and the 
King's special preacher, Fray Hernando de Castillo, 
stood by them, and the quarrel had gone into a new 
form. Philip's position was a ridiculous one. If Vas- 
quez persisted in prosecuting Perez before a judge who 
was acquainted with the truth, it was scarcely possible 
that the truth would be unrevealed. Secretary Vasquez 
is a dark figure. The letter of the Princess shows that 
Philip was secretly employing this man in various mat- 
ters in which she supposed herself to be wronged, and 
there were reasons for his conduct at which, with our 
imperfect knowledge, it is idle to guess. Consulting no 
one but his confessor, the King gave orders for the 
arrest both of Perez and of the Priucess and on July 
29, 1579, the}' were ordered into separate confinement. 
The lady's relations, it is likely, required no explana- 

from the other. Perez might know that Matteo Vasquez was employed 
by his master against the Princess ; but Matteo Vasquez never guessed 
that his master had ordered Perez to assassinate Escovedo : and thus 
Philip himself, by his passion for secrecy, and for what he regarded as 
skilful management, had entangled his two secretaries in a furious an- 
tagonism. Perez had no knowledge how far Philip had engaged him- 
self in the Eboli litigation. To him Matteo Vasquez appeared to have 
thrown himself gratuitously into the quarrel. The King was irritated 
at Perez for unconsciously thwarting him by taking up the Princess's 
cause. Matteo who, evidently from his letters, hated the Princess, had 
almost succeeded in dragging into light his master's complicity with 
Escovedo's murder, by his innocent belief that Perez and the Princess 
•were the guilty parties, and that the cause of the murder was resent- 
ment at the part which Escovedo had taken in attempting to separate 
the Princess from Perez. Not a hint, not a suggestion of any love- 
scandal appears in the whole of the correspondence. Some great ques- 
tion was at issue, the very nature of which cannot now be accurately 
made out, on which the court was divided, and which was enveloped in 
a network of intrigue — the King sitting in the middle of it, playing the 
part of Providence with the best intentions, with extremely limited 
ability, and with the most unfortunate results — for he affected especially 
to imitate Providence in the secrecy of its methods ; and secrecy is only 
safe to a judgment which cannot err. 



126 An Unsold I Historical Hi 

tions, but for form's sake Philip offered them. The 
same night he wrote to the Duke of Infant ado and to 
Medina Sidonia. A dispute had arisen, ho said, between 
his two secretaries, Antonio Perez and Matteo Vasquez, 
with which the Princess was concerned. She had com- 
plained to him unreasonably, and his confessor had 
vainly endeavored to persuade her to be reconciled to 
Vasquez. She had been committed, therefore, to the 
fortress of Pinto, and he had thought it right to give 
them immediate information. The resentment of the 
Duke of Infantado was not likely to be deep : Medina 
Sidonia replied coolly that so wise a sovereign had doubt- 
' ss good reason for his actions. He was himself laid 
up with gout, and the pain was in his mind as well as 
in his body. He trusted that his Majesty would be 
gracious to the Princess, and that the grace would be 
even more marked than the punishment. 

The Archbishop of Toledo called the next morning on 
Juana de Coello, Perez's wife. He told her from the 
King that she was not to be alarmed. Her husband's 
life was in no danger, nor his honor either. The im- 
prisonment was a mere matter of precaution to prevent 
other inisehh - 

The Princess now drops out of the scene. Philip in- 
formed her that if she would undertake to hold no more 
communication with Perez, she would be received to 
favor, and might return to the court. She replied that 
if Perez ever wrote to her or sent her a message, the 
King should know of it. Put this was not sufficient. 
After a brief confinement she was allowed to retire to 
her castle at Pastrana, and there without further dis- 
turbance she remained to the end of her life. 

Meanwhile, if Philip's object had been to stop the 
prosecution for Escovedo's murder, and to divert sus- 



Aii Unsolved Historical Riddle 127 

picion from himself, both purposes had been attained. 
Matteo Vasquez must have been satisfied, for his name 
was never mentioned again. Popular opinion had ac- 
cused Perez of having committed the murder at the 
Princess's instigation. Their simultaneous arrest led to a 
general belief that the suspicion was not unfounded. If 
the King had made a second confidant of Vasquez, and 
had concerted the details of the comedy with him, the 
result, at least for a time, did credit to his ingenuity. 
Perez's fault, whatever it had been, was not to appear 
unpardonable. He was left four months in charge of 
the alcalde at the court. He was treated with kindness, 
and even distinction, and was permitted to have his 
children with him. In the November following he be- 
came unwell, aud was permitted further to return to his 
own house, though still as a prisoner. Next he was re- 
quired to sign a bond of pleytohomenage, by which he 
and Matteo Vasquez engaged as king's vassals not to 
injure each other. The guard was then removed. He 
recovered his freedom aud resumed his duties as sec- 
re: ary to the Council of State, though no longer as 
confidential secretary to the King. The whole matter 
seemed to have been thus wound up, and public inter- 
es: was soon directed on worthier objects. The death 
of Don Sebastian in Africa had left vacant the Portu- 
guese throne. Philip took possession of the succession 
as the nearest heir. The Duke of Alva with a few 
skilful movements disposed of the pretender. Philip 
went to Lisbon to be installed as sovereign, and in the 
glory of this grand achievement Escovedo's assassination 
might have gone the way of other scandals. 

But, as Perez said, " it was a thing which had no be- 
ginning and could have no end." A cloud still hung 
over him, and his slightest movements were watched. 



12S An Unsolved Historical Riddle 

The Princess of Eboli sent him presents from Pastrana. 
It was immediately reported to Philip. He had many 
friends, the Archbishop of Toledo, and "grandees" of 
highest rank. They came often to see him, but he was 
forbidden to return their visits. Philip evidently chose 
that a sinister suspicion should still remain attached to 
him. Antonio de Pazos, the President of Castile, knew 
the whole story, for the King had told him. Juana do 
Coello complained to him of her husband's treatment, 
and insisted that his reputation ought to be cleared. 
The President was of the same opinion, and so informed 
the King. " If Antonio Perez has committed a crime," 
he said, "give him a formal trial and hang him. If he 
is innocent, let him go on his good behavior, and if he 
offends again, punish him." 

The King answered: "If the matter were of a kind 
which would allow a judicial process, it should have 
been ordered from the first day. You must tell the 
woman to be quiet ; no change is possible at present." 

" Time," Philip used to say. " cures all evils. Time 
and I never fail." And so he went on trusting to time 
when time could not help him. 

Perez had friends, but he had euemies also. Matteo 
Vasquez had withdrawn, but others had taken his place, 
and Philip's ambiguities encouraged them. Among these 
were the powerful Mendozas. Perez had managed the 
Princess's money affairs. He had jewels in his charge 
and other things also which they conceived to belong to 
them. His habits were luxurious, and remained so in 
spite of his semi-disgrace. His palace, his plate, his 
furniture, his equipments, and entertainments were the 
most splendid in Madrid. He gambled also ; perhaps 
he won, perhaps he lost ; in either case it was a reproach. 
How. men asked, could Antonio Perez support such a 



An Unsolved Historical Riddle 120 

vast expenditure? and the answer suggested was, of 
course, corruption or malversation. He had six thou- 
sand ducats a year from his offices ; but the Archbishop 
of Seville, a friendly witness, said that he must be spend- 
ing fifteen or twenty thousand. The King was advised 
to order an inquiry info the accounts of all the public 
offices, and of Perez's, of course, among them. A 
"lion's mouth," like that of Venice, was opened for 
secret information, and was not long in want of suste- 
nance. Accusations poured in as venomous as hatred 
could distil. Rodrigo Vasquez de Arce,* who after- 
ward became President of the High Court, conducted 
the investigation of them, and the result was not favor- 
able to Perez. Undoubtedly he had received sums of 
money from all parts of the empire to expedite busi- 
ness, just as Bacon did in England, and as high offi- 
cials everywhere were then in the habit of doing. They 
looked on such things as recognized perquisites so long 
as nothing was said about them ; but gratuities were 
formally prohibited, and, when exposed, were incapable 
of defence. 

On the report being presented, Philip allowed Perez 
to be prosecuted for corrupt practices, and it was then 
that, at a venture, he was accused further of having 
altered ciphered despatches. 

No one knew better than Philip that, under the ar- 
rangements of his cabinet, the alteration of despatches 
without his own knowledge was impossible. Perez wrote 
to Philip to remonstrate. " Ho could not answer such a 
charge," he said, " without producing his papers," and 
among them the King's own notes upon Escovedo's 
death. The confessor was sent to see these papers, 
and, having read them, could only recommend his master 
* It docs not appear whether he was a relation of Matteo Vasquez. 
9 



130 An Unsolved Historical Riddle 

to let tlio charge fall. As to corrupt practices, he ad- 
vise J Perez to make no defence, and assured him that 
he should not be condemned in the value of a pair of 
gloves. The sentence went beyond the pair of gloves. 
Perez was suspended from his office for ten years. He 
was to suffer two years' imprisonment, and was to pay 
besides thirty thousand ducats, half to the Crown and 
half to the family of the Princess of Eboli, as property 
belonging to them which he had unlawfully appropriated. 

This judgment was delivered on January 23, 15S5. It 
was not published ; nor is it certain how much of it was 
enforced. But there were reasons why, at that moment, 
the sentence of imprisonment was convenient. The Es- 
covedo business was bursting up again. Enriquez, the 
page who had assisted at the murder, had let fall in- 
cautious speeches. The President, Rodrigo Yasquez, 
took the subject into the scope of his inquiries. He 
sent for Enriquez and examined him. On his evidence 
Diego Martinez was arrested also. If these two could be 
induced to tell the truth, the proofs against Perez would 
be complete. He might produce his papers, but in a 
close court the judges might refuse to receive or look at 
them to save the King's credit ; and Perez would cer- 
tainly be executed. The King was just then going down 
to Aragon for the opening of the Cortes. In Aragon 
trials were public, with equal justice between king and 
subject. Perez, himself an Aragonese, if left free might 
follow the King thither, and put himself under the pro- 
tection of the laws of the Province. There certainly, 
if not in Madrid, his exculpation would be heard. It 
was therefore determined that he should be at once ar- 
rested, and a guard was sent to his house to take him. 

Perez from first to last had an honest friend at the 
court, Cardinal Quiroga, Archbishop of Toledo. The 



An Unsolved Historical Riddle 131 

Archbishop saw, or feared, that Perez was about to be 
sacrificed, and his sense of equity, though he was Grand 
Inquisitor, was outraged. He recommended Perez to 
take sanctuary. He would then be a prisoner of the 
Church, and his case would be heard in the Holy Office. 
The Inquisition had already denounced Philip's method 
of removing doubtful subjects. It would stand by Pe- 
rez now and prevent a scandalous crime. 

Perez took the Cardinal's advice and fled to the near- 
est church. But the Crown officials were determined 
to have him, and the sanctuary was not respected. The 
church door was burst in ; he was torn out of his hiding- 
place, and carried off again to a State prison. His prop- 
erty was sequestrated, his papers were seized, and the 
Nuncio, when he protested, was threatened with dis- 
missal. Henry the Eighth himself could not have been 
more peremptory in his contempt of sacred privileges 
than the ministers of the Most Catholic King. The 
documents were at once examined. The secret corre- 
spondence was found to have been abstracted. Juana de 
Coello was supposed to have it ; and, to extort it. from 
her, she and her children were carried off also, and con- 
fined in the same castle with her husband. It was true 
that she had some part of the private papers, and threats 
of torture could not wring them from her till she had 
ascertained that those of more special consequence were 
not among them. She found someone who would take 
a note to her husband. Being without ink she wrote it 
with her blood. The answer came back that she might 
deliver the papers without fear, the Escovedo notes 
being secured elsewhere. She mentioned where the 
boxes would be found. The King's confessor himself 
came to her to receive the keys. He, too, had some 
sense remaining of right and wrong, and he told her 



132 An Unsolved Historical Riddle 

that if Perez was troubled any further, he would him- 
self go "como uu loco," like a madman, into the Plaza, 
and proclaim the truth to all the world. 

The boxes being surrendered, Juana de Coello and 
the children were sent home, there being no longer oc- 
casion for keeping them. As the confessor was going 
off, she could not help telling him that there were still 
a few papers reserved. The King, when he came to 
look, must have discovered that this was fatally true. 
All else was in its place, even to the most secret ciphered 
correspondence ; but the fifty or sixty especial letters, 
which he knew himself to have written, about Escovedo, 
and knew also that Perez had preserved — these were 
not to be discovered. That, if he had got possession of 
these letters, Philip would have allowed Perez to be 
tried and executed, is not certain ; but it may have been 
well for him that he was not exposed to the temptation. 
As matters stood, the judges might refuse to admit the 
letters, and might pass sentence on the evidence. But 
Juana de Coello could carry the damning records into 
Aragon, or across the frontier, and publish them ; and 
all Europe would cry out "Shame!" Nor was the 
Church idle. The Church authorities, with the Pope 
behind them, demanded that Perez should be restored 
to sanctuary. Worried, impatient, cursing the day that 
he had ever blundered into so detestable a quagmire, 
the King again paused. Once more the prison doors 
were opened ; once more Perez was brought back to 
Madrid, and lodged in a handsome house with his 
family. Evidently the unfortunate King was at his wits' 
end, and could not determine what course to choose. 
Perez went to church for mass. The great people came 
as before to show him countenance. He himself ad- 
dressed many letters to the King, which were carefully 



An Unsolved Historical Riddle 133 

read, if not answered. The Archbishop of Toledo, in 
particular, was confident that all would be well. The 
attitude of the Church alone, he said, would suffice to 
protect Perez. The President, Rodrigo, would have 
gone on gladly with the trial, but obstacles were con- 
tinually arising. Some one ashed him what was to be 
done. " How can I tell you ? " he replied. " One day 
the King says go on, the next he says hold back. There 
is a mystery which I cannot make out." 

Fourteen months thus drifted away. At the end of 
them the King could bold out no longer. There was 
still but a single witness, for Diego Martiuez had so far 
continued stanch. He might confess, perhaps, if he 
was tortured, but torture could not be used without the 
King's permission. Philip wrote to Perez telling him 
generally that he might rely on his protection, but with- 
out saying what steps he was prepared to take. Perez 
"was brought to trial at last before President Rodrigo. 
He stood upon his innocence, denied that he had mur- 
dered Escovedo, and denied all knowledge of the mat- 
ter. Enriquez gave his evidence with correctness ; but 
Diego Martinez, who was confronted with him, said he 
was a liar, and his story a fabrication. Conviction on 
such terms was not to be had. Perez's papers were 
handed to President Rodrigo to be examined. He 
searched them through, but found nothing to the pur- 
pose. Perez, after all, would probably have been ac- 
quitted but for the intervention of a " Deus ex machina," 
Philip himself, who interposed in a manner the most 
unlooked for. This is the most extraordinary feature 
in the whole extraordinary story. Philip, it might have 
been thought, would have welcomed Perez's acquittal 
as the happiest escape from his embarrassments ; but it 
seems that his conscience was really disturbed at the 



134 An Unsolved Historical Riddle 

success of deliberate perjury. Just as it became clear 
that the prosecution bad failed, and that Perez, whether 
guilty or not, could not be pronounced guilt}' without a 
violation of the laws, Philip's confessor, as if from him- 
self, but of course with his master's sanction, wrote to 
him to say that although he had killed Escovedo, he had 
a complete defeuce for it. When the truth was known, 
his character would be cleared ; he advised him, there- 
fore, to make a complete confession, and at once say that 
he had acted by the King's order. 

This was written on September 3, the year after the 
defeat of the Armada. Through all that famous enter- 
prise, from its first conception to the final catastrophe, 
this mean business had simmered on, and was at lust at 
boiling point. 

"Well as Perez knew his master, he was not prepared 
for this last move. What couhl it mean ? The King 
had promised to stand by him. But if he confessed, 
his guilt would be clear. He might say what he pleased, 
but the judges might hang him notwithstanding. There 
was Diego Martinez, too, to be thought of. He would 
be hanged, at any rate. So long as the proof was de- 
ficient, confession would be insanity. The King, be- 
sides, had positively ordered that the motives for the 
murder were not to be introduced. 

In this tone he replied to Diego de Chaves ; but the 
confessor stood to his opinion. Evidently he had con- 
sulted Philip again. 

" The plain course for you," he answered, " is to say 
directly that you had the King's orders for Escovedo's 
death. You need not enter on the reasons. You ought 
not to make a false oath in a court of justice ; and if you 
have done so already you ought not to persevere in it. 
Where there has been no fault there can be no punish- 



An Unsolved Historical Riddle 135 

meut, and confession -will only show the innocence of 
yourself and your accomplice. "When the truth is out, 
the wound will heal, and his Majesty will have given 
the Escovedo family the justice which they demand. If 
they persist after this, they can be silenced or banished. 
Only, once more, the causes which led the King to act 
as he did are not to be mentioned." 

M. Mignet considers that these letters were written to 
tempt Perez to a confession, in order that he might be 
destroyed. The judges would ask for proof, and, having 
lost his papers, he would be unable to produce it. The 
auswer is simple. Both Pbilip and the confessor were 
aware that the compromising letters were still in posses- 
sion of either Perez or his wife. Perez, who was not 
troubled about perjury, thought it safer to risk an un- 
certainty than to act as the confessor advised. To confess 
was to place his life in the judges' hands. He could feel 
no certainty that the King's orders would be held a suffi- 
cient authority. Philip's conduct had been strange from 
the beginning, and kings' consciences are not like the 
consciences of private individuals. They may profess to 
wish one thing, while their duty as sovereigns requires 
another. There was another alternative ; the Escovedos, 
who were now the only prosecutors, might agree to a com- 
promise. Perez proposed it to the confessor ; the con- 
fessor permitted Perez to try, if the King was not to be a 
party to the transaction ; overtures were made and were 
successful. The Escovedo family consented to withdraw 
their suit on receiving twenty thousand ducats. 

This seemed like the end ; and if there had been 
nothing more in Escovedo's death than an ordinary mur- 
der, the compensation would have been held sufficient, 
and the end would have really come. But behind the 
private wrong there was a great question at issue, whether 



136 An Unsolved Historical Riddle 

the sovereign had or bad not a right to make away with 
his subjects when he believed them criminal, because for 
reasons of State it was inexpedient to bring them to trial. 
Though Castile had no longer constitutional rights like 
Aragon, a high-minded people (as the Castilians were) 
had a regard for their own security. The doctrine had 
been condemned by the Holy Office, and the judges can 
have liked it as little. 

The opportunity of bringing the matter to a point was 
not to be lost. The President, Rodrigo, wrote to Philip 
that his reputation was at stake. The prosecution had 
been dropped, but the world was convinced, notwith- 
standing, that the murder had been committed by his 
order. It concerned his honor that Perez should explain 
why that order had been given. He begged the King 
to send him an instruction in the following terms: 
" Tell Antonio Perez, in my name, that as he knows tho 
causes for which I commanded him to kill Escovedo, I 
desire him to declare what those causes were." 

M. Mignet adheres to his opinion that Perez was to be 
betrayed; that being without his papers, he must fail to 
prove what he was required to reveal, and could then be 
executed as a slanderer and an assassin. It would be 
difficult for him and perhaps impossible to recall satis- 
factorily a condition of things which was now buried 
under the incidents of twelve eventful years. But there is 
no occasion to suspect Philip of such deliberate treach- 
ery. The stages through which his mind had passed can 
easily be traced. He never doubted the righteousness of 
Escovedo's execution; but he had been afraid to irritate 
his brother, and had therefore wished his own part in it 
to be concealed. Therefore, when Perez was first sus- 
pected, he had not come forward to protect him ; and 
therefore also he had connived at the direction of the 



An Unsolved Historical Riddle 137 

suspicion on the Princess of Eboli. A long time had 
passed away, Don John was gone, the aspect of Europe 
had changed. He had no longer the same reluctance to 
admit that he had ordered the murder ; but he had bid- 
den Perez be silent about the causes, because though 
sufficient for his own conscience, it would be hard, when 
circumstances were so much altered, to make them in- 
telligible to others. The Spaniards of 1590, smarting 
under the destruction of the Armada, might well have 
thought if Don John and the Duke of Guise had tried 
the " enterprise " together, when the Queen of Scots was 
alive, so many of their homes would not then have been 
desolate. 

But public opinion was excited. The compromise of 
the prosecution seemed to imply that there was some- 
thing disgraceful behind. A secret half revealed is gen- 
erally more dangerous than the truth ; and thus, when 
called on by the judges to direct Perez to make a full 
confession, the King felt that it was better to consent. 

This explanation seems sufficient, without looking for 
sinister motives. The order was written, and Perez was 
required to obey. 

It might have been thought that he would have seen 
in such an order the easiest escape from his troubles. 
To speak was to be acquitted (at least morally) of a 
worse crime than of having been a too faithful servant. 
But it is likely that he did feel it would be difficult for 
him to make out a satisfactory case. He could produce 
the King's instructions, and could describe the motive 
in general terms. But State reasons for irregular ac- 
tions are always looked askance at, and loyal subjects 
are inclined to excuse their sovereigns at the expense 
of their advisers. Perez might naturally fear that he 
would be accused of having misled the King, perhaps 



138 A - .'.' - .'. MU 

through malice. This view was taken of the ease 1 
Archbishop of Toledo. "Senor." he said to t'. 
or when he hoard of this fresh command, •• either lam 
mad or this U affair is mad. It the E 

bill Escovedo, why does ho ask t or the causes ? 
The King kn« i .: the time. Perei was not Es- 

I >'s judge. He placed before the King certain de- 
spatch< s. I' Bang directed a course to be taken upon 
them, and Peri Now after twelve years, with- 

out his papers, with so many persoi - who could 

have given evidence, he is asked forexplai a Give 

him back his papers, bri t hundred pers 

now dead out of their graves, and even thou ho will 
it." 
shop protested, the Nuncio v - 
Juanade Coello and Perez's children wept and clam- 
ored : but President Bodrigo, with the King's orders in 
3] tnd, persisted that Peres should speak. Three times 
3S '.y. in the course of a month, he was brought 
-. and he rem.. - born. He says that he 

would ss, because the King had pers 

dered him to be silent, . ddnot 

an immediate direction, wi 
that it was 1 beyed. This is evidentl; 

insufficient explanation. He must have Eelt that if ho 
detailed thi causes murder he admitted the fact ; 

:' he admitted the faet he might bo sacrificed. 
Bui \ - Letermined that the whole truth 

should bo told at last, and that, as ho could not tell it 
himself, it should be told by Perez. Aft* c a moj th's re- 
- - ,'o, the question was applied in 1 . si Perei was 
tortured. Ho broke down under the pain, and told all. 
It was then that Dona Juana appealed to God against 
i do Chaves in the Dominieau chapel It was 



An Unsolved Historical Riddle 139 

that Dona Gregoria dared President Rodrigo in his hall. 
What the King or the judges had intended to do next is 
mere conjecture. Diego Martinez, when his master had 
spoken, confessed also. He was not punished, and Perez 
perhaps would not have been punished either. The 
judges might have been contented with the exposure. 
But Perez did not care to tempt fortune or Philip's 
humors further. His wife was allowed to visit him in 
prison. He escaped disguised in her clothes. Horses 
were waiting, he rode for his life to Aragon, and the 
next day was safe beyond the frontier. 

So ends the first part of the tragi comedy. The next 
opened on another stage and with wider issues. 

The Fueros or " Liberties " of Aragon were the only 
surviving remnant of the free institutions of the Penin- 
sula. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, the 
two C.istiles, Valencia, Granada, and Aragon had their 
separate administrations and their separate legislatures. 
The great cities had their municipal corporations, while 
Portugal, till within ten years, had been an independent 
kingdom. One by one they had been absorbed. Aragon 
remained still free, but with a freedom which had been 
found inconvenient at Madrid, and was unvalued by the 
most powerful of the Aragonese nobles themselves. The 
tendency of the age was toward centralization, and the 
tenure of the Fueros had been growing yearly more pre- 
carious. Isabella had been impatient for a revolt which 
would give her an excuse for extinguishing them. The 
Duke of Alva more lately, on some provocation, said 
that with three or four thousand of his old soldiers he 
would make the King's authority supreme. Such as it 
was, however, the Constitution still subsisted, being sup- 
ported chiefly by the populace of the towns, who, as 
long as noise aud clamor were sufficient, were the en- 



140 An Unsolved Historical Riddle 

thusiastic champions of their national privileges. A 
council for the administration of the province sat at Mad- 
rid, but its powers were limited to advice. The Cortes 
met annually at Saragossa to vote the taxes, but the King 
could neither prorogue nor dissolve them without their 
own consent. A Committee of the Cortes carried on the 
Government, and in the intervals of the sessions remained 
in office. The Aragonese had their own laws, their own 
judges, their own police, their own prisons, and no 
" alien " armed force was permitted within their bounda- 
ries. The Grand Justiciary, the highest executive offi- 
cer, was nominated by the King, but could not be de- 
prived of office by him. A Royal Commissioner resided 
in Saragossa, to observe and to report, to act in cases to 
which the Crown was a party, perhaps irregularly to dis- 
tribute favors and influence opinion. But this was the 
limit of his interference. The Commissioner in the year 
1590 was Iuigo de Meudoza, Marques of Almenara, the 
cousin and the chief antagonist of the Princess of Eboli. 
Such was Aragon when Antonio Perez sought an asy- 
lum in the land of his fathers. He professed to have 
been tortured till his limbs were disabled, but he was 
able to ride without resting till he had crossed the frontier 
and had reached Calatayud. He made no effort, perhaps 
he was too weak, to go further, and he took refuge in a 
Dominican convent. Within ten hours of his arrival an 
express came in from Madrid to a private gentleman, 
Don Manuel Zapata, with orders to take him, dead or 
alive, and send him back to his master. Perez says that 
when his flight was known at the Court, there was general 
satisfaction. "Uncle Martin," the palace jester, said to 
Philip the next morning : " Sir, all the world rejoices at 
the escape of Antonio Perez ; he cannot be very wicked ; 
you should rejoice too." Philip did not rejoice at all. 



An Unsolved Historical Riddle 111 

He Lad put himself in the power of one of bis subjects, 
and he did not choose to remain any longer in so de- 
grading- a position. When he had been himself willing 
to submit his conduct to a judicial inquiry, Perez, who 
had less to fear if he had been acting uprightly, had 
shown so much unwillingness that possibly Philip may 
have now doubted whether Escovedo's conduct had after 
all been properly represented to him. Perez had fled, 
carrying the compromising documents along with him ; 
he was probably on his way to France, to delight Philip's 
enemies with the sight of them, and with the tale of his 
own wrongs. 

Anticipating pursuit, Perez had sent a friend, Gil de 
Mesa, to the Grand Justiciary, to signify his arrival, and 
to put himself under the protection of the law. Mean- 
while, the town mob at Calatayud rose in his defence, 
and when Don Manuel arrived at the monastery he 
found the priests and students in arms to protect their 
sanctuary. Fifty soldiers arrived immediately after from 
Saragossa. The orders of the Justiciary were to bring 
Perez at once to the national prison of the Manifestacion, 
where he was to be detained till the King could be com- 
municated with. The King's reply was an order to the 
Marques of Almenara to prosecute him immediately in 
the Court of Aragon on three charges. 

1. For having caused the death of Escovedo, falsely 
pretending the King's authority. 

2. For having betrayed secrets of State and tampered 
with ciphered despatches. 

3. For having fled from justice when his conduct was 
being judicially inquired into. 

If Perez had been wholly innocent he would have felt 
that he had at last an opportunity of setting himself 
clear in the face of the world. The court would be open, 



142 An Unsolved Historical Riddle 

the trial public, and his defence could neither be gar- 
bled nor suppressed. His reluctance was as vehement 
as ever, and was not concealed by his affectation of a 
desire to spare his master. From Calatayud, and from 
Saragossa afterward, he wrote letter upon letter both to 
Philip and to Diego de Chaves, protesting his loyalty, 
entreating to be left in quiet with his wife and children ; 
indicating that he had the means of defending himself, 
but hoping that he might not be forced to use them. 
These letters being left unanswered, he took into his 
confidence a distinguished Arag - ecclesiastic, the 
Prior of Grotor. He showed the Prior the mysterious 
papers which he had brought with him. with Philip's 
upon them, and desired him to go at once to 
Madrid and demand an audience of Philip. " His 
Majesty," Perez said in his instructions to the Prior, 
"must know that I possess these documents. They 
contain confidential secrets affecting others besides V - - 
vedo : let his Majesty judge whether it is desirable that 
evidences should be produced in court which touch the 
reputation of distinguished persons, which will create a 
scandal throughout Europe, and will reflect on the pru- 
dence and piety of his Majesty himself. Though the 
confessor has taken most of my papers from me. Provi- 
dence has been pleased that I should retain these, and 
these will suffice for my defence. If brought to trial I 
shall certainly be acquitted ; but I prefer to save the 
King's reputation : my case is now notorious, and it will 
not be wise to challenge the world's opinion. I have 
been shorn like a lamb for eleven years, and I have held 
my peace. My blood has been shed. I have been tor- 
tured in a dungeon, and I have remained faithful. In 
eight or ten days I must give in my answer. Some 
people tell me that I ought rather to lose my head than 



An Unsolved Historical Riddle 143 

speak ; but if I am driven to it the trutli must be 
told." 

The Prior went. Philip saw him more than once, and 
heard what he had to say. There could be no doubt 
that Perez had the compromising letters, for the Prior 
had seen them. Yet Philip's courage did not fail him. 
After Perez's flight the Court of Castile had given judg- 
ment against him in default. He was to be dragged 
through the streets and hanged. His head was to be 
cut off and exposed, and all his property was to be con- 
fiscated. The answer to the mission of the Prior of 
Gotor was the publication of his sentence. 

Perez, thus driven to bay, took up the challenge. He 
drew a memorial containing his own account of the 
causes of Escovedo's murder. He attached it to such 
notes as sufficed to prove the King's complicity, reserv- 
ing others in case of future necessity ; and this was 
publicly presented as his reply to the Marques of Al- 
menara. The King had probably expected that the 
judges of Aragon would not lightly accept so grave a 
charge against their sovereign ; that they would re- 
spect the sentence of the better informed Court of Cas- 
tile, and would understand that there was something 
behind which was left unexplained. But Aragon was 
excited, and chose to show its independence. After the 
admission of the memorial Don Iiiigo sent word to the 
King, that if no further evidence were produced, Perez 
would certainly be acquitted. The King believed that 
he had other resources at his disposition by which com- 
plete defeat could be avoided, and at the last moment 
directed that the case before the Grand Justiciary should 
be abandoned. " If," said Philip, " it was possible to 
reply with the same publicity which Perez has given to 
his defence, his guilt would be proved, and he would 



144 An Unsolved Historical Riddle 

be condemned. Throughout this whole affair I have 
considered only the public good. The long imprison- 
ment of Perez, the entire course which the cause has 
taken, lias had no other object. Abusing my clemency, 
and afraid of the issue, he so defends himself that to 
answer him I must publish secrets which ought not to 
be revealed, and involve persons whose reputation is of 
more consequence than the punishment of a single 
offender. Therefore. I shall go no further with the 
prosecution in the Court of Aragon. I declare Perez to 
have sinned worse than ever vassal sinned before against 
his sovereign — both in time, form, and circumstance ; 
and I desire this my declaration to be entered with my 
notice of withdrawal Truth, which I have always 
maintained, must suffer no injury. And I reserve such 
rights as appertain, or may appertain to me, of bring- 
ing the offender to account for his crimes in any other 
manner." 

The " other manner " was through the Court of 
Enquesta. In the Constitution of Aragon, a special 
reservation excluded from protection the King's ser- 
vants and officials. Over these the law of the province 
had no more authority than the King was pleased to 
allow — and the King under this clause claimed to have 
Perez surrendered to himself. The local lawyers, how- 
ever, interpreted " servants " to mean only servants in 
Aragon and engaged in the affairs in Aragon, not per- 
sons belonging to other countries or other provinces. 
Aragonese, who accepted Crown employment, undertook 
it with their eyes open and at their own risk, and might 
be supposed to have consented to their exemption ; but 
such a case as that of Perez had not been contemplated 
when the clause in the Constitution was allowed. But 
the King had one more resource. Though acquitted, 



An Unsolved Historical Riddle 145 

the prisoner was still detained, as if the authorities were 
unsatisfied of his real innocence. Perez had grown im- 
patient, and, in his loose, vain way, had babbled to his 
companions in the Manifestacion, and his language had 
been so extravagant that it had been noted down and 
forwarded to the court. He had threatened to fly to 
France or Holland, when he would make the King re- 
pent of his treatment of him. He had compared him- 
self to Marius, who had been driven into exile and 
had returned to the consulship. He said that he would 
raise a revolt in Castile ; he would bring iu Henry the 
Fourth ; he would make Aragon into a Free Republic 
like Venice. He spoke of Philip as another Pharaoh. 
He had ventured into more dangerous ground, and had 
called into question the mysteries of the faith. Some 
of these rash expressions had been noted down in writ- 
ing, with the solemn reflections on them of the King's 
confessor. The impatient wretch had said that " if God 
the Father allowed the King to behave so disloyally to 
him he would take God the Father by the nose." The 
confessor observes, " This proposition is blasphemous, 
scandalous, offensive to pious ears, and savoring of the 
heresy of the Vadiani, who affirmed that God was cor- 
poreal and had human members. Nor was it an ex- 
cuse to say that Christ, being made man, had a nose, 
since the words were spoken of the First Person." 

Again, Perez had said, " God is asleep in this affair 
of mine. If He works no miracle for me, it will go near 
to destroy the faith." 

" This proposition," the confessor noted, " is scan- 
dalous. The prisoner has been accused of the greatest 
enormities ; he has been tried by course of law and 
condemned to death, and he speaks as if he was without 
fault." 

K) 



14:0 A i Unsolved Historical Riddle 

Worse ==t ill. Perez had gone on, " God sleeps! God 

sloe-, a is an idle t:ile ; there cannot be a God ! " 

The confessor observes. " This proposition is heretical, 
as if God had no care for human things, when the Bible 
and t sh affirm that He does care. To say that 

there cannot be a God is heresy, for though it be said in 
doubt, yet doubt is not allowed in matters of faith ; we 
must believe without doubt." 

Lastly. Perez had said, " If things pass thus, I cannot 
believe in God." 

The confessor notes, " This is blasphemous, scandalous, 
and offensive, and savors of heresy ah 

The confessor '8 ears had no doubt been outraged. 
Many a poor sinner had gone to the stake for less au- 
dacious utterances. For nine months after the failure 
with the Enquesta, Perez remained in the Manifestacion, 
pouring out these wild outcries At the end of them an 
order came from the Holy Office at Madrid to the three 
luquisitors at Saragossa to take posst. s>ion of his person 
and remove him to their own prison in the old Moorish 
palace of the Aljaferia. 

The Inquisitor-General of Spain was his old friend. 
Lrchbishop of Toledo. In Madrid the Inquisition 
had been well disposed toward him, and once he had 
thrown himself on its protection. Had he now submitt- 
ed voluntarily, he would probably have been safe from 
serious injury, and an impartial decision would have 
arrived at. The Inquisition, be it remembered, 
was no slave of the Crown, and. though a cruel guardian 
of orthodoxy, would not have looked too narrowly at the 
fretful words of a man whom the Archbishop believed 
to have been ill used. The judges of Aragon were by 
this time salaried that Perez was not entirely the martyr 
which he pretended to be. and that the King had some- 



An Unsolved Historical Riddle 147 

thing to say for himself. Philip, who appears to Protes- 
tant Europe a monster of injustice, was in Spain respect- 
ed and esteemed. The Grand Justiciary did not wish 
to quarrel with the Crown in a case so doubtful, still 
less to quarrel with the Holy Office, and was preparing 
quietly to comply. But Perez would not have it so, and 
preferred to trust to popular jealousy. A mob is always 
ready to listen when it is told that Liberty is in danger. 
A story was circulated in Saragossa that the Marques of 
Almenara had bribed the prisoners in the Manifestacion 
to send in a false account of Perez's language, that the 
Inquisition was claiming a right which did not belong 
to it, that the Fueros were being betrayed, and that tho 
Aragonese were to be made slaves of the Castilians. 
Symptoms showed themselves of an intended rising, and 
the Justiciary and Don Inigo, after a night's confer- 
ence, agreed that Perez should be removed at once and 
without notice to the Inquisition prison. At noon on 
May 2-4, 1591, he was quietly placed in a carriage at 
the Manifestacion Gate. A knot of young men tried to 
stop the horses, and clamored for the Constitution ; 
but they were told that it was cosa de fey, an affair of 
religion, and that they must mind their own business. 
The carriage reached the Aljaferia without interruption, 
and Perez was in the Inquisitors' hands. But on the 
instant Saragossa was in arms. The alarm bell boomed 
out. The market-place swarmed with a furious multi- 
tude shouting "Fueros, Fueros! Libertad! Libertad!" 
Their plans had been already laid. Half the mob went 
to attack the Aljaferia, the others to the house of Philip's 
representative, the Marques of Almenara. He, too, it is 
likely, had remembered that Perez was the friend of the 
Princess of Eboli, and had thrown himself into the 
quarrel with some degree of personal animosity. He 



148 An Unsolved Historical Riddle 

was now to expiate his eagerness. He was urged to 
fly. The Mendozas, he answered, never fled. The palace 
door was dashed in. The Justiciary, who had hurried 
to protect him, was thrown down and trampled on. Don 
Inigo was seized, dragged out, and borne away among 
cries of " Muera, muera ! — Kill him, kill him ! " Stripped 
naked, his clothes torn off, his arms almost forced out 
of their sockets, struck and pelted with stones, he was at 
last rescued by a party of police, who carried him into 
the city prison. There, a fortnight after, he died of his 
injuries, so ending his lawsuit with the widow of Buy 
Gomez. 

The Inquisitors at the Aljaferia had a near escape of 
the same fate. The walls were strong and the gates 
massive. But the fierce people brought fagots in cart- 
loads, and raised a pile which would have reduced the 
palace and all in it to dust and ashes. The Inquisitors, 
they said, had burned others ; they should now burn 
themselves unless Perez was instantly released. The 
Inquisitors would have held out, but the Archbishop of 
Saragossa, Almenara's brother, insisted that they must 
yield. Perez, four hours only after they had seized him, 
was given back to his friends, and borne away in triumph. 

But the mob had risen for the rights of Aragon, and 
not, after all, for a prisoner of whose innocence even 
they were unconvinced. Perez imagined himself a 
national hero. He had expected that the Cortez would 
take up his case, that he would be allowed to present 
himself at the bar, and detail the story of his wrongs in 
Philip's own presence. The leaders of the people had 
formed a cooler estimate of his merits. They contented 
themselves with taking him back to the Manifestacion. 
The officials of the province went up to Madrid, to de- 
liberate with the court what was next to be done. 



An Unsolved Historical Riddle 149 

For Perez personally there was no enthusiasm. If 
the Inquisition would acknowledge the Fueros, the sen- 
sible people of Saragossa were ready to surrender him. 
The Inquisition made the necessary concessions, and 
Perez's own supporters now advised him to submit un- 
reservedly. But this he did not dare to do ; he tried to 
escape from the Manifestacion and failed. He appealed 
again to the mob. Broad sheets were printed and cir- 
culated declaring that the officials were betraying the 
Fueros, and though the chiefs of the first insurrection 
had withdrawn, the multitude could still be wrought 
upon. Unfortunately for Aragon, the Grand Justiciary, 
Don Juan de Lanuza, a wise and prudent man, suddenly 
died. Had he lived a few weeks longer he might have 
saved his country, but it was not so to be. The nomi- 
nation of his successor belonged to the King, but the 
office had by custom become hereditary in the Lanuza 
family ; Don Juan's son, a generous, hot-headed j^outh, 
claimed to act without waiting for the King's sanction, 
and, fatally for himself, was ruled or influenced by his 
iincle, Don Martin, who was Perez's most intimate all}'. 
The officials had returned from the court. The Council 
of Saragossa had decided that Perez should be restored 
to the Holy Office. The removal was to be effected on 
the following morning, September 24 ; but when the 
morning came the mob were out again. The Mani- 
festacion was broken open, the council-room was set on 
fire, and Perez was again released. It was understood, 
however, that he was not to remain any longer at Sara- 
gossa to be a future occasion of quarrel. He was es- 
corted a league out of the city on the road to the 
Pyrenees, and he was made to know that if he returned 
he would not be protected. He did return ; he pre- 
tended that the roads w r ere unsafe, but he came back in 



150 An Unsolved Historical Riddle 

secret, and in the closest disguise, and lay concealed in 
Don Martin's bouse till it could be seen bow tbe King 
would act. 

Constitutional governments which cannot govern are 
near their end. When the intelligent and the educated 
part of tbe population are superseded by tbe mob, they 
cannot continue zealous for forms of freedom wbicb to 
them are slavery. The mob has usurped the power ; if 
it can defend its actions successfully, it makes good tbe 
authority which it has seized ; if it fails, the blame is 
with itself. The Aragon executive had protected Perez 
on^bis arrival in the province, they had given him the 
means of making an open defence, and, so far as their 
own council could decide in bis cause, they had pro- 
nounced him acquitted. But there were charges against 
him which could not be openly pleaded, and his inno- 
cence was not so clear that it would be right as yet to 
risk a civil war in a case so ambiguous. The judges 
considered that enough had been done. The mob and 
the young Justiciary thought otherwise, and with them 
the responsibility rested. 

Philip was in no hurry. Ten thousand men were col- 
lected quietly on the frontier under Don Alonzo de 
Vargas. The sentiments of the principal persons were 
sounded, and it was ascertained that from those who 
could offer serious resistance there was none to be an- 
ticipated. Liberty bad lost its attractions when it 
meant the protection of criminals by the town rabble. 
That the mob bad shaken themselves clear of Perez 
made little difference to Philip, for they bad taken him 
by force out of prison. The middle-class citizens, who 
still prized their Constitution, believed, on tbe other 
hand, or at least some of them believed, that the Kiug 
bad no longer an excuse for interfering with them. 



An Unsolved Historical Kiddle 151 

Philip so far respected their alarm that before he or- 
dered the advance of the troops he sent out a proclama- 
tion that the Constitution would not be disturbed ; and 
possibly, if there had been no opposition, he would have 
found his course less clear. But the more eager spirits 
could not be restrained ; the nobles held aloof ; the 
young Justiciary, however, was ardent and enthusiastic 
— he was compromised besides, for he had taken office 
without waiting for the King's permission. The in- 
vasion was an open breach of the Fueros. He called 
the citizens of Saragossa to arms, and sent appeals for 
help to Barcelona and the other towns. 

There was no response — a sufficient proof either that 
the province was indifferent, or that the cause was re- 
garded as a bad one. Lanuza let out a tattered multi- 
tude of shopkeepers and workmen to meet the Castilians ; 
but, though brave enough in a city insurrection, they 
Lad no stomach for fighting with a disciplined force. 
They turned and scattered without a blow, and Alonzo 
cle Vargas entered Saragossa November 12, 1591. 

The modern doctrine, that political offences are vir- 
tues in disguise, was not yet the creed even of the most 
advanced philosophers. The Saragossa rabble had re- 
sisted the lawful authorities of the province. They had 
stormed a prison ; they had murdered the King's rep- 
resentative ; fatalest of all, they had taken arms for 
liberty, and had wanted courage to fight for it. The 
Justiciary was executed, and fifteen or twenty other per- 
sons. The attack on the Aljaferiawasan act of sacrilege, 
and the wrongs of the Inquisition were avenged more 
severely. A hundred and twenty -three of the most 
prominent of the mob were arrested. Of these, seventy- 
nine were burnt in the market-place. The ceremony be- 
gan at eight in the morning ; it closed at night, when 



152 An Unsolved Historical Riddle 

there was no light but from the blazing fagots ; the 
last figure that was consumed was the effigy of Antonio 
Perez, the original cause of the catastrophe. The pun- 
ishment being concluded, the Constitution was abolished. 
The armed resistance was held to have dispensed with 
Philip's promises, and the Fueros of Aragon were at an 
end. 

Perez himself escaped on the night on which the Cas- 
tilians entered, and made his way through the Pyrenees 
to Pau. He published a narrative of his sufferings — that 
is, his own version of them, with the further incriminating 
documents which the Protestant world at once received 
with greedy acclamations. Much of what he said was 
probably true ; much might have worn another complex- 
ion if the other side had been told. But Philip never 
condescended to reply. Perez was taken up by Henry 
IV., pensioned, trusted, and employed so long as the war 
with Spain continued. He was sent into England. He 
was received by Elizabeth, entertained by Esses, and 
admitted into acquaintance by Francis Bacon — not with 
the approval of Bacon's mother, who disliked him from 
the first. He was plausible ; he was polished ; he was 
acute. He had been so long intimately acquainted with 
Spanish secrets, that his information was always useful 
and often of the highest value. But he was untrue at 
the heart. Even his own Relation is in many points in- 
consistent with itself, and betrays the inward hollowness ; 
while his estimate of his own merits went beyond what 
his most foolish friends could believe or acknowledge. 
Gradually he was seen through both in Paris and Lon- 
don. When peace came he was thrown aside, and sank 
into neglect and poverty. He attempted often, but 
always fruitlessly, to obtain his pardon from Philip 
III., and eventually died miserably in a Paris lodging, 



An Unsolved Historical Riddle 153 

a worn-out old man of seventy-two, on November 3, 
1611. 

So ends the story of a man who, if Lis personal merits 
alone were concerned, might have been left forgotten 
among the unnumbered millions who have played their 
chequered parts on the stage of the world. Circum- 
stances, and the great religious revolution of the six- 
teenth century, converted Philip in the eyes of half 
Europe into a malignant demon. The darkest interpre- 
tations were thrown upon every unexplained action which 
he committed ; and Antonio Perez became the hero of 
a romance fitter for a third-rate theatre than the pages 
of accredited history. The imaginative features of it 
have now disappeared, but there remains an instructive 
picture of Philip's real character. He said that he had 
been guided throughout by no motive save concern for 
the public welfare, and there is no reason to suppose 
that he was saying anything except what he believed to 
be true ; yet he so acted as to invite suspicion in every 
step which he took. 

Escovedo, as his conduct was represented by Perry, 
deserved to be punished, perhaps to be punished severe- 
ly. To prosecute him publicly would have been doubt- 
less inconvenient ; and Philip, without giving him an 
opportunity of defending himself, undertook the part of 
a secret providence, and allowed him to be struck in the 
dark without explaining his reasons. Providence does 
not permit vain mortals, even though they be Catholic 
kings, to usurp a jurisdiction which is reserved for itself. 
It punished Philip by throwing him into the power of 
an unscrupulous intriguer, who had, perhaps, in some 
measure really misled him on the extent of Escovedo's 
faults. 

He tried to extricate himself, but he was entangled in 



154 An Unsolved Historical Riddle 

the net which his own hands had woven ; and, when 
Perez refused to assist him, and preferred to keep him 
struggling at his mercy, he was driven to measures 
which could be represented to the world as a base per- 
secution of the instrument of his own crimes. Thus, out 
of an unwise ambition to exercise the attributes of 
omniscience, the poor King laid himself open to ground- 
less accusations, and the worst motives which could be 
supposed to have actuated him were those which found 
easiest credit. 

But the legend of the loves of Philip II. and the 
Princess of Eboli was not of Spanish growth. The 
Relation of Perez was read iu the Peninsula, but it did 
not shake the confidence with which Philip was regarded 
by his subjects. The Fueros of Aragon perished, but 
they perished only because constitutional liberties which 
degenerate into anarchy are already ripe for an end. 



. 



SAINT TERESA * 

Reprinted from the Quarterly Review. 

On the western slope of the Guadarrama Mountains, 
midway between Medina del Campo and the Escurial, 
stands the ancient town of Avila. From the windows 
of the railway carriage can be seen the massive walls and 
flanking towers, raised in the eleventh century in the 
first heat of the Spanish crusade. The fortifications 
themselves tell the story of their origin. The garrison 
of Avila were soldiers of Christ, and the cathedral was 
built into the bastions, in the front line of defence, as 
an emblem of the genius of the age. Time has scarce- 
ly touched the solid masonry. Ituy Diaz and his con- 
temporaries have vanished into legend ; but these silent 
monuments of the old Castilian character survive to re- 
mind us what manner of men the builders of them were. 
Revolutions on revolutions overflow the Spanish penin- 
sula, condemn the peasantry to poverty, and the soil to 
barrenness ; but they have not in these later times un- 
earthed in the process a single man like those whose 
names are part of European history. They have pro- 
duced military adventurers, and orators like Castelar, of 
" transcendent eloquence ; " but no Cid, no Grand Cap- 
tain, no Alva, not even a Cortez or a Pizarro. The Pro- 

* 1. Acta S. Teresue a Jeeu, Carmelitarum strictiorix Observanlice 
parentis. Illustrata a Josepho Vandermoere, Societatis Jesu Presby- 
tero Theologo. Bruxellis, 1845. 2. Obras de £>a?Ua Teresa de J law. 
Barcelona, 1844. 



156 Saint Teresa 

gresista of our nge has a long- ascent before him if lie is 
to rise to the old level. 

The situation of Avila is extremely picturesque, stand- 
ing in the midst of gray granite sierras, covered with 
pine forests, and Intersected with clear mountain rivu- 
lets. It is now thinly populated, ami. like most towns 
in Spain, has fallen into decay and neglect ; but the 
large solid mansions, the cathedral, the churches, the 
public buildings, the many convents and monasteries, 
though mostly gone to waste and ruin, show* that once 
it was full of busy, active life, of men and women play- 
ing their parts there in the general drama of their 
country. 

In the Spain of Ferdinand and Isabella there were 
two peculiarities ; first, that there was no recognized 
capital, for the provinces which formed the monarchy 
were still imperfectly cemented ; and secondly, that the 
nobles and gentry, the senores and the hidalgos, had 
their chief residences in the towns, and not on their 
estates. The causes and consequences of this practice 
of theirs it would be interesting to trace, were the 
present the occasion for it, but of the fact itself there is 
no doubt at all. Of feudal chateaux and manor-houses, 
so numerous in France and England, there were not 
many in any part of Spain, and very few in the Castiles. 
The landed aristocracy congregated within the walls of 
the provincial cities. Their palaces are still to be seen 
in grand and gaunt neglect, with their splendid stair- 
cases, their quadrangles, their columned verandas, the 
coats of arms carved over the portals. In the cities also 
were the learned professions : the lawyers, the doctors, 
the secular clergy, the religious orders. The Court 
moved from place to place, and there was no centr:il 
focus to draw away men of superior rank or superior 



Saint Teresa 157 

talents from their local homes. The communications 
were difficult ; t-he roads were horse-tracks ; the rivers, 
save where some enterprising municipality had built a 
bridge, were crossed only by fords and pontoons. Thus 
each important town was the heart of a separate district, 
a complete epitome of Spanish life, with all its varied 
circles. An aristocracy was in each, proud and exclusive. 
A religious world was in each ; a world of art and liter- 
ature, of commerce and adventure. Every family had 
some member pushing his fortunes in the army or in 
the New Hemisphere. The minds of men were in full 
activity. They were enterprising and daring. Their 
manners were polished, and their habits splendid ; for 
into Spain first had poured the fruits of the discoveries 
of Columbus, and the stream of gold was continually 
growing with fresh conquests. Perhaps nowhere on the 
earth was there a finer average of distinguished and 
cultivated society than in the Provincial Castilian cities, 
as it is described in Cervantes's novels. The Castilians 
were a nation of gentlemen, high bred, courteous, chiv- 
alrous. In arms they had no rivals. In art and litera- 
ture Italy alone was in advance of them, and Italy led by 
no great interval ; while the finest characteristics were 
to be met with equally in every part of the country. 

They were a sincere people too, Catholic in belief, 
and earnestly meaning what they professed. In the 
presence of the Moors, Christianity had retained its 
mediaeval features. Of Christianity itself they knew no 
form, and could conceive of none, save that for which 
they had fought against- the Moslem ; and the cause of 
the Church was the cause of patriotism. Therefore, 
when the Reformation began in Germany, the Spaniard 
naturally regarded its adherents as the old enemy in an- 
other dress. An Italian priest could mutter at the altar, 



158 Saint 7Y/vai 

•• Bread thou art, and bread thou will remain.* 1 No such 
monster could Lave been found in the Spanish Peninsula. 
Leo X. was said to have called Christianity a profitable 
fable. To the Bubjecta oi Isabella it was a truth, which 
devils only could deny, 

1 '. i< Northern nations revolted from theOhurch in the 
name of liberty. The Spaniards Loved liberty, but it 
was the liberty of their country, for which they had 
been fighting for centuries against the Infidel As aris- 
tocrats, they were iustinotively on the Bide of authority. 
United among themselves, they believed in the union of 
Christendom : and they threw themselves into the strug- 
gle against heresy with the same enthusiasm with which 
they contended with the Crescenl in the Mediterranean, 
They sent their chivalry to the Low Countries as if to a 
crusade. Two Spaniards, Ignatius Loyola and Francis 
Xavier, created the spiritual army of the Jesuits. While 
some were engaged with the enemy abroad, the finer 
spirits among them undertook the task of Betting in 
order their own house at home. They, too, required ;i 
Reformation, if they were to be lit champions of a Holy 

Cause ; and the instrument was a woman, with as lew- 
natural advantages as Ignatius himself, distinguished 
only in representing, as he did, the vigorous instinots of 
the Spanish character. 

The Church oi Rome, it has been said, does not. like 
the Church of England, drive her enthusiasts into re- 
bellion, hut preserves ami wisely employs them. She 

may employ them wisely while they are alive, hut. 
when they are dead she deeks them out in paint and 
tinsel, to he worshipped as divinities. Their hisfory 
becomes a legend. They art- BUrrOUnded with an en- 
velope of lies Teresa of Avila has fared no better 
than other saints in tin 1 calendar. She has heeu the 



Saint Teresa L59 

favorite idol of modern Spain, and nho deserved more 
modest treatment. 

Tim idolatry may merit all that Mr. Ford has said 
about It, but the aooount which he has given of the lady 
herself is so wide of the original, that it is oot even a 
caricature. Ford, doubtless, < I i < I Dot like Catholic saints, 
Hud the absurdities told about them disgusted him ; but 
the materials lay before bim for a real portrait of Teresa, 
had be oared to examine them ; and it is a pity that be 
did Dot, for no one could have done better justice to bis 

subject. 

Teresa <lc Oepeda was born at Avila on March 28, 1516 
the time, aooording to her biographer, " when Luther 
■whs secreting the poison which be vomited out two years 
later." . . . She was one of a large family, eleven chil- 
dren in nil, eight sons and three daughters. Ber father, 
Don Alfonso, was twice married. Teresa's mother was 
the second wife, Beatrice de Ahumada, a beautiful, im- 
aginative woman, whom bad health confined chiefly to 

n sofa. The Cepedas were of honorable, descent ; Don 

Alfonso was a gentleman of leisure; and moderate fortune. 
lie spent, his time, when not engaged with works of 
ohavity, in reading Spanish literature chiefly Church 
history and lives of the saints. His library, if the Barber 

and Curate had sal, upon it, would have been sifted (IS 

ruthlessly as the shelves of the Ingenious Knight of Ln 
Manoha, for half of if was composed of hooks of Knight 

Errantry — the Same volumes probably which those stern 
Inquisitors condemned to the flames. These books were 

devoured as eagerly by the delicate Beatrice as the graver 

pages by her husband, and her example was naturally 
imitated by her children. They sat up at eights in their 
nursery over Rolando and Don l'»eli;uiis and Aniadis of 
Gaul. Teresa composed odes to imaginary cavaliers, 



160 Saint Teresa 

who figured iu adventures of which she was herself the 
lieroiue. They had to conceal their tastes from their 
father, who would not have approved of them. He was 
a very good man, exceptionally good. He treated his 
servants as if they were his sons and daughters. He was 
never heard to swear, or to speak ill of anyone. He was 
the constant friend of the Avila poor. If too indulgent, 
he had sense and information, and when he discerned 
what was going on, he diverted Teresa's tastes in a safer 
direction. By nature, she says, she was the least relig- 
ious of her family, but her imagination was impressible, 
and she delighted in all forms of human heroism. She 
early forgot her knights, and devoted herself to martyrs ; 
and here, being concrete and practical, she thought she 
would turn her new enthusiasm to account. If to be in 
heaven was to be eternally happy, and martyrs went to 
heaven straight, without passing through Purgatory, she 
concluded that she could do nothing more prudent than 
become a martyr herself. When she was seven years old, 
she and her little brother Antonio actually started off to 
go to the Moors, who they expected would kill them. 
The children had reached the bridge on the stream which 
runs through the town, when an uncle met them and 
brought them back. As they could not be martyrs, they 
thought, as next best, that they would be hermits. They 
gave away their pocket-money to beggars. They made 
themselves cells in the garden. Teresa's ambition grew. 
When other girls came to see her, they played at nunne- 
ries, when she was perhaps herself the abbess. Amid 
these fancies her childish years passed away. She does 
not seem to have had much regular teaching. Nothing 
is said about it ; and when she grew up she had difficul- 
ty in reading her Latin Breviary. 

The Knight Errantry books, however, had left their 



Saint Teresa 101 

traces. Her mother died while she was still very young, 
and she was much affected. But natural children do not 
long continue miserable. As she passed into girlhood, her 
glass told her that she was pretty, and she was pleased 
to hear it. She was moderately tall, well shaped, with a 
fine complexion, round brilliant black eyes, black hair, 
crisp and curly, good teeth, and firmly chiselled lips 
and nose. So fair a figure deserved that pains should 
be taken with it. She was particular about her dress ; 
she liked perfumes ; her small dainty hands were kept 
scrupulously white. Cousins, male and female, went and 
came ; and there were small flirtations with the boys, 
and with the girls not very wise confidences. One girl 
cousin there was especially, whom the mother, while she 
lived, would not allow to visit at the house, and whom 
an elder sister would still have kept at a distance had she 
been able. But Teresa was wilful, and chose this especial 
young lady as her principal companion. There were also 
silly servants, too ready to encourage folly, and Teresa 
says that at this time nothing but regard for her honor 
kej)t her clear of serious scrapes. 

Don Alfonso grew uneasy ; the elder sister married 
and went away ; so, feeling unequal himself to the task 
of managing a difficult subject, he sent Teresa to be 
educated in an Augustinian convent in the town. Neither 
her father nor she had any thoughts of her adopting a 
religious life. He never wished it at any time. She did 
not wish it then, and had undefined notions of marrying 
as her sister had done. The convent to her was merely 
a school, where there were many other girls of her own 
age, nor did she wholly like the life there. She made 
friends among the elder nuns, especially with one, a 
simple, pious woman, who slept in the same room with 
her. But the younger sisters were restless. They had 



162 Saint Teresa 

acquaintances in the town, and were occupied with other 
things besides religious vows. "Within the convent itself 
all was not as it should have been. The vicar of the 
Order had the whole spiritual management both of the 
nuns and of their pupils. No one but himself might 
hoar their confessions, and the prioress could not inter- 
fere with him. since by his position he was her superior. 
Teresa does not hint that there was anything positively 
wrong, but when she came to lay down rules in later 
years for the regulation of her own houses, she refers to 
her recollections of what went on in language curiously 
frank : 

" The confessor in a convent," she Bays, " ought not to he 
the vicar or the visitor. He may take a special interest in 
some sister. The Prioress will he unable to prevent him 
from talking to her, and a thousand mischiefs may follow. 
. . . The sisters should have no intercourse with the 
confessor except at the confessional. . . . The very exist- 
ence of our institutions depends on preventing these black 
devotees from destroying the spouses of Christ. The devil 
enters that way unperceived." * 

The vicar confessor encouraged Teresa in her views 
for marriage, but her fancies and her friendship wero 
suddenly broken off by an attack of illness. She required 
change of air ; she was sent on a visit to her sister ; and 
on her way home she spent a few days with an uncle, a 
man of secluded and saintly habits, who afterward with- 
drew into a monastery. The uncle advised his niece to 
take the same step that he was himself meditating ; and 

* u Va nos todo nnestro Ser, en quitar la ocasion para que no liny a 
estos negros devotos destruidores de las esposas do Christo, quo ea 
menestei pensai siempre en lo peor que puede suoeder, para quitar esta 
ocasion, que se entra sin ssntirlo por aqui el demonic" — Cartas de la 
Santa Madre, vol. vi. p. 'Jo2. 



Saint Teresa 163 

she discussed the question with herself in the same 
spirit with which she had designed throwing hi 
among the Moors. She reflected that convent discipline 
might be painful, but it could not be as painful as Pur- 
gatory, while it' she remained in the world she might 
come to something worse than Purgatory. She read 
St. Jerome's Epistles; she then consulted her father, 
and was distressed to meet with strong objections. Don 
Alfonso was attached to his children, and Teresa was his 
especial favorite. The utmost that she could obtain was 
a permission to do as she pleased after his own death. 
But " a vocation " was held to dispense with duties to 
parents. She made up her own mind, and, like Luther, 
she decided to act for herself, and to take a step which, 
when once accomplished, could not be recalled. One 
morning she left her home with her brother, and applied 
for admission at the Carmelite Convent of the Incarna- 
tion. She was then eighteen. She had been disap- 
pointed with the Augustinians ; but the Carmelites had 
a reputation for superior holiness, and she threw her- 
self among them with the passionate enthusiasm of an 
ardent girl, who believed that she was securing her 
peace in this world, and happiness in the next. Again 
she was to be undeceived. The Order of Mount Car- 
mel had been founded by Albert, Patriarch of Jerusalem, 
in the second Crusade. The rule had been austere — 
austere as the rule of the Carthusians — with strict se- 
clusion, silence, solitude, the plainest dress, the most 
ascetic diet. But by the beginning of the sixteenth 
century time and custom had relaxed the primitive 
severity, and Carmelite convents had become a part of 
general society ; the nuns within the cloisters living and 
occupying themselves in a manner not very different 
from their friends outside, with whom they were in con- 



164 Saint Teresa 

si ant communication. Austerity was still possible, but 
it was not insisted on, and was a sign of presumption 
and singularity. In the "incarnation" there were a 
hundred and ninety sisters, and the discipline among 
them was scarcely more than a name. They went in and 
out as they pleased ; they received visits and returned 
them ; they could be absent from the cloister for months 
at a time. Catholics accuse Protestants of having 
libelled the monastic life of Europe as it existed before 
the Reformation. Luther himself has said nothing 
harsher of it than the saint of Avila. She followed the 
stream, she said ; she abandoned herself to vanity and 
amusement, and neither custom nor the authority of her 
superiors laid the slightest check upon her. She had as 
much liberty as she liked to ask for, and liberty in a 
convent meant free opportunities of evil. She does not 
assert that there was gross licentiousness ; but she does 
assert that to " ill-disposed women" convent life " was 
rather a road to hell than an aid to weakness;" and 
that "parents would do better to marry their daugh- 
ters honestly than to place them in relaxed houses of 
religion : " 

"The girls themselves," she says, " are not so much to 
blame, for they do no worse than they see other sdo. They 
enter convents to serve the Lord and escape the dangers of 
the world, and they are flung into ten worlds all together, 
with youth, sensuality, and the devil tempting them to evil. 
. . . In the same house are two roads, one leading to 
virtue and piety, another leading away from virtue and piety ; 
and the road of religion is so little travelled, that a sister who 
wishes to follow it has more to fear from her companions 
than from all the devils. She finds it easier far to make in- 
timacies with the devil's instruments than to seek friend- 
ship with God." 



Saint Teresa t'65 

How dangerous this lax temper might have been to 
herself Teresa tells us in an instructive incident. Her 
health was never strong, and the convent had disagreed 
with her. She was sick every morning, and could touch 
no food till noon. She often fainted, and there were 
symptoms of heart disorder. Nor was she happy in her- 
self. She had tried to be good, and had only made 
enemies by her efforts. She found herself rebuked for 
small offences of which she was wholly innocent. She 
lived much alone, and the sisters thought she was dis- 
contented. Her father became alarmed for her, and again 
sent her away into the country, with a single nun for a 
companion. At the place where she went to reside there 
was an attractive priest, a man of intellect and culture. 
Teresa was fond of cultivated men. She took the priest 
for her confessor, and found him more and more agree- 
able. He flattered her conscience by telling her that 
she could never wish to do wrong. He said it was his 
own case also, and they became extremely intimate. She 
was informed after a time that this charmingly innocent 
person had been living for some years with a female 
companion, while he continued to say mass as if nothing 
were the matter. She was at first incredulous. She 
made inquiries, but the scandal was notorious. Every- 
oue was aware of it, but the offender had influence, and 
it was unsafe to interfere with him. Even so, however, 
Teresa would not abandon her friend, and looked for ex- 
cuses for him. The woman, she found, had given him 
an amulet, and while he wore it he was under a spell. 
He told her this himself, and her interest was now in- 
creased by pity and anxiety. She admits that she was 
unwise, that she ought at once to have ended the ac- 
quaintance. She preferred to endeavor to save a perish- 
ing soul. She was but twenty ; she was very beautiful ; 



v - - 

Sod . u ware 

to a less s ps he was 

S - - lis Sb< 

pressed bii eonrs 

- 
anee broke off bis 

■ s 

• 

: s d with the less resei ins she says 

sappos 
•was as 
is it usually is - - 

s 
- 

sly wrong 
:ept God 1 - . t ayeai 

3 Teres - 3 naively, was 

aess 
7 years lat< - an she wi 

ion that I was - ■■ ' 
■ tusi ".. . 

urd so s sisted ssors 

• s 
v ter this she relates with ] 

simp'.. s was 

She was s . stantly sict 
1 system was s 
find :' ms were afraid of 1 ss. In this 

I : end ol 
San Jos From 
se she tx d par itn 1 

S ros . - . sup] sed i she owed her reec 
• u. I* she says, "has allowed other saints to help us 



Saint Teresa 107 

on some occasions ; my experience of this glorious saint 
is that he helps us in all : as if the Lord would teach us 
that, as he was subject to San Josef on earth, and San 
Josef was called his father though only his guardian, so 
San Josef, though in heaven, has still authority with 
him." 

The illness had become less acute ; but, as the pain of 
body grew less, Teresa became conscious of spiritual 
maladies that were left uncured. "She loved God with 
half her mind, but she loved the world with the other." 
Her prayers troubled her, she says, for she could not fix 
her mind on them. Meditation was yet more difficult. 
"She had a slow intellect and a torpid imagination." 
She recpiired a book to help her, for the right reflec- 
tions and emotions would not occur to herself ; other 
thoughts persisted in intruding themselves ; and at 
length, being, as she was, a veracious woman, she aban- 
doned prayer altogether. Among all her faults, she 
says she was never a hypocrite, and prayer when it was 
no more than a form of words seemed an indecent 
mockery. 

Her confessor, when she explained her troubles, only 
thought her morbid. In the convent she was regarded 
as exceptionally strict, and wide as was the general 
liberty, with her every rule was dispensed with. She 
spent her time in the society of Avila with more enjoy- 
ment than she was herself aware of, and when a pious old 
nun told her that she was causing scandal, she would 
not understand it, and was only angry. 

" Unless God had brought me to the earth," she says, " I 
should most assuredly have gone at last to hell. I had many 
friends to help me to fall, while, as to rising again, I was 
utterly alone. My confessor did nothing for me. For twenty 



5 

i 

' ' s I 

3 . ■. 

IS ' . s 

. 

S 3 describe*] 

by herselt She 

• 

v She was ' 

s - 
- - s 

with real s sness, was oceas 

last illness 
She saw bis s a 

S Sh« 

■ 

She was not a ) ■ v 

M 

g 

is sh< -■•• - - ' 
i 

tl 
Christ, the s 

Spanish 
. . thorns 



Saint Teresa L69 

from the Bide and the hands and feet. Protestants and 
Oatholios experience on identiool emotion when the 
meaning of Christianity is brought borne to them. 
Bach poor sinner recognizes, as by a flash of lightning, 
that these tortures were endured tor bim or ber — -that 
be or she was actually present in the Saviour's mind 
when lu> wis suffering on the cross. The thought when 
it oomes is overpowering. Teresa felt as it' ber heart 
were wrenched in two. She fell in tears at the feel of 
the figure. She did not seek for sentimental emotions, 
She surrendered herself wholly and forever \o the Be- 
ing whose form was fastened on her bouI, and from that 
moment every worldly feeling was gone, never to return. 
Her spiritual life had begun. She explains the condi- 
tion in which she found herself by :in Image familiar to 

everyone who 1ms seen the environs of q Spanish village. 
She apologises for its simplicity, but it is ms true and 
pregnaul as n ( lospel parable. 

•• \ man [a direoted to make a garden in a bad soil overrun 
with sour grasses. The Lord of the land roots out the weeds, 
bows seeds, and plants herbs and fruit .-trees. The gardener 
must then oare for them and water them, that they may thrive 
and blossom, and that 'the Lord 1 may find pleasure in his 
garden and oome to visit it. There are four ways in whioh 
the watering may be dene. There is water whioh is drawn 
wearily by band from the well. There is water drawn by the 
ox-wheel, mere abundantly and with lighter labor. There 

is water brought in from the river, which will saturate the 
Whole ground J and, last and best, there is rain from heaven. 
PoiW sorts of prayer correspond to these. The first is a 
Weary otVort with small returns; the well may run dry ; the 

gardener then must weep. Theseoondis internal prayer and 

meditation upon Clod ; the trees will then show leaves and 
flower-buds. 'The third is love Of God. 'The virtues then 
beoome Vigorous. We converse with Clod face to face. Tho 



170 Saint Teresa 

flowers open and give out fragrance. The fourth kind cannot 
be described in words. Then there is no more toil, and the 
seasons no longer change ; flowers are always blowing, and 
fruit ripens perennially. The soul enjoys undoubting certi- 
tude ; the faculties work without effort and without conscious- 
ness ; the heart loves and does not know that it loves ; the 
mind perceives yet does not know that it perceives. If the 
butterfly pauses to say to itself how prettily it is flying, the 
shining wings fall off, and it drops and dies. The life of 
the spirit is not our life, but the life of God within us." 

This is very beautiful. It is the same, in fact, as what 
Bishop Butler says, in less ornamented prose, of the for- 
mation of moral habits. "\Ye first learn to do right with 
effort. The habit grows till it pervades the nature, and 
afterward we act as we ought spontaneously, with no 
more consciousness than animals have, which do what 
they do by instinct. 

But we are now T on the edge of the abnormal features 
of Teresa's history, and before I enter on the subject I 
must explain briefly how I myself regard the aberrations 
which will have to be related. All physicians, all psychol- 
ogists of reputation, agree that besides sleeping and 
waking there are other conditions — trances, ecstasies, 
catalepsies, and such like — into which the body is liable 
to fall ; and, as in sleep images present themselves more 
vivid than can be called up by waking memory or waking 
fancy, so in these exceptional states of the system pe- 
culiar phenomena appear, which are none the less real 
because fools or impostors have built extravagant theo- 
ries upon them. The muscles sometimes become rigid, 
the senses become unnaturally susceptible. The dream- 
ing power is extraordinarily intensified, and visions are 
seen (we say " seen " for want of a more scientific ex- 
pression) palpable as sense itself. Such conditions are 



Saint Teresa 171 

usually brought about by ordinary causes. Perhaps 
tbey may be created artificially. They are not super- 
natural, for tbey have an exact analogy in the universal 
experience of sleep. They are considered supernatural 
only because they are exceptional, and the objects per- 
ceived are always supplied out of the stores with which 
memory is furnished. Teresa's health was peculiar. 
For twenty years she had been liable to violent nervous 
attacks — those, too, an imperfectly understood form of 
disorder. She was full-blooded, constantly sick, con- 
stantly subject to faintingfits and weakness of the heart. 
Her intellect and moral sense, on the other hand, were 
remarkably strong. She was not given to idle imagina- 
tions. She was true and simple, was never known to 
tell a lie or act one. But her mental constitution was 
unusual. Objects that interested her, she says, never 
ran into words, but fastened themselves as pictures 
upon her brain. Meadows, trees, and rivers, effects of 
sky, all materials of landscape beauty, gave her intense 
emotions, but emotions which she was unable to de- 
scribe. She was a painter, but without the faculty of 
conveying her impressions to canvas. She perceived 
with extreme vividness, but the perception ended in it- 
self. If she wanted phrases she had to look for them 
in books, and what she found in books did not satisfy 
her because it did not correspond to her own experi- 
ence. 

This was her general temperament, on which power- 
ful religious emotion was now to work. The figure of 
Christ had first awakened her. The shock threw her 
into a trance. The trances repeated themselves when- 
ever she was unusually agitated. Such a person would 
inevitably see " visions," which she would be unable to 
distinguish from reality ; and if she believed herself 



172 Saint Teresa 

subject to demoniac or angelic visitations, she was not 
on that account either weak or dishonest. 

In the life of everyone who has really tried to make a 
worthy use of existence, there is always a point — a poiut 
never afterward forgotten — when the road has ceased to 
be downhill, and the climb upward has commenced. 
There has been some accident perhaps ; or someone has 
died, or one has been disappointed in something on 
which the heart had been fixed, or some earnest words 
have arrested attention ; at any rate, some seed has 
fallen into a soil prepared to receive it. This is called 
in religious language conversion ; the turning away 
from sin and folly to duty and righteousness. Begin- 
nings are always hard. Persons who have hitherto acted 
in one particular way, and suddenly change to another 
way, are naturally suspected of having unworthy per- 
sonal motives. They have lived so far for themselves. 
They cannot be credited at once with having ceased to 
live for themselves. They must still be selfish. They 
must have some indirect object in view. 

Teresa in her convent had resolved to be thencefor- 
ward a good woman, and to use to better purpose the 
means which the Church offered to hei\ She found at 
once that she was misunderstood and disliked. She 
wished to be peculiar, it was said ; she wished to be 
thought a saint ; she was setting herself up to be better 
than other people. Her trances and fits of unconscious- 
ness were attributed to the most obvious cause. She 
was said to be "possessed " by a devil. She had been 
humbled in her own eyes ; and she herself thought that 
perhaps it was a devil. She could not tell, and her 
spiritual adviser could not tell any better. The Jesuits 
were then rising into fame. Francisco Borgia, ex-Duke 
of Gaudia, had joined them, and had been made Pro- 



Saint Teresa 173 

vincial General for Spain. He came to Avila, heard of 
Teresa, and took charge of her case. He put her un- 
der a course of discipline. He told her to flog herself 
■with a whip of nettles, to wear a hair cloth plaited with 
broken wires, the points of which would tear her skin. 
Had her understanding been less robust, he would have 
driven her mad ; as it was, he only intensified her ner- 
vous agitation. He bade her meditate daily on the de- 
tails of Christ's passion. One day, while thus occupied, 
she became unconscious ; her limbs stiffened, and she 
heard a voice say, " Thou shalt no more converse with 
men, but with angels." After this the fits always re- 
turned when she was at prayers. She saw no distinct 
form, but she felt that Christ was close to her. She told 
her confessor what she had experienced. He asked how 
she knew that it was Christ. She could not explain. A 
few days after, she was able to tell him that she had 
actually seen Christ. She had seen Him, she said (with- 
out being aware that she was explaining from whence 
the figure had been derived), exactly as He was painted 
rising from the sepulchre. The story went abroad. The 
ill-natured sisters made spiteful remarks ; the wisest 
shook their heads. Teresa had not been noted for 
special holiness in the many years that she had been 
among them. Others, much more like saints than she, 
had never seen anything wonderful ; why should God 
select her to visit with such sjDecial favor ? They were 
more clear than ever that she was possessed. She was 
preached at from the pulpit ; she was prayed for in 
chapel as bewitched. She could not tell how to behave : 
if she was silent about her visions, it was deceit ; if she 
spoke of them, it was vanity. She preserved her balance 
in this strange trial remarkably well. Her confessor had 
been warned against her, and was as hard as the rest. 



1~± Saint Teresa 

She continued to tell him whatever she supposed herself 
to see and hear, and absolutely submitted to his judg- 
ment. He confidently assured her it was the devil, and 
directed her when Christ appeared next to make the 
sign of the cross and point her thumb at Him. God 
would then deliver her. She obeyed, though with infinite 
pain. Christ's figure, whoever made it, ought, she 
thought, to be reverenced ; and to point her thumb was 
to mock like the Jews. As her trances recurred always 
at her devotions, she was next forbidden to pray. Under 
these trials Christ himself interposed to comfort her. 
He told her that she was right in obeying her confessor, 
though the confessor was mistaken. The inhibition to 
pray. He said, was tyranny, and, in fact, it was not long 
maintained. The apparitions grew more frequent and 
more vivid. One day the cross attached to her rosary 
was snatched out of her hands, and when it was given 
back to her it was set with jewels more brilliant than 
diamonds. A voice said that she would always see it 
so, though to others it would seem as before. She had 
often an acute pain in her side ; she fancied once that 
an angel came to her with a lance tipped with tire, 
which he struck into her heart. In after years, when 
she became legendary, it was gravely declared that the 
heart had been examined, and had been found actually 
pierced. A large drawing of it forms the frontispiece 
of the biography provided for the use of pious Catholics. 
This condition continued for several years, and be- 
came the talk of Avila. Some held to the possession 
theory ; others said it was imposture ; others, especial- 
ly as there was no further harm in poor Teresa, be- 
gan to fancy that perhaps the visions were real. She 
herself knew not what to think. Excellent people 
were satisfied that she was under a delusion, and the 



Saint Teresa 175 

excellent people, she thought, might very likely be 
right, for the apparitions were not all of a consoling 
kind. She had seen Christ and the angels, but also 
she had seen the devil. "Once," she says, "the devil 
appeared to mo in the oratory ; ho spoke to me ; his 
face whs awful, and his body was of flame without 
smoke. Ho said that I had escaped him for the pres- 
ent, but he would have me yet. I made the sign of the 
cross ; he went, but returned ; I threw holy water at 
him, and then he vanished." At another time she was 
taken into hell ; the entrance was by a gloomy passage, 
at the end of which was a pool of putrid water alive 
with writhing snakes. She fancied that she was thrust 
into a bole in a wall where she could neither sit nor lie, 
and in that position was tortured with cramps. Other 
horrors she witnessed, but did not herself experience : 
she was shown only what would have been her own 
condition if she had not been rescued. 

One act she records, exceedingly characteristic. Avila 
was not wholly unbelieving. Afflicted persons some- 
times came to her for advice. Among the rest a priest 
came, who was living in mortal sin, miserable, yet un- 
able to confess in tho proper form, and so made fast in 
the bonds of Satan. Teresa prayed for him ; and then 
ho managed to confess, and for a time did not sin any 
more; but ho told Teresa that tho devil tortured him 
dreadfully, and he could not bear it. She then prayed 
that the tortures might be laid on her, and that the 
priest might be spared. For a month after the devil 
was allowed to work his will upon her. He would sit 
upon her breviary when she was reading, and her cell 
would fill with legions of imps. 

An understanding of less than unusual strength 
would have broken down under so severe a trial. Teresa 



176 Saint Teresa 

knew nothing of the natural capacities of a disordered 
animal system. She had been taught theologically that 
angels and devils were everywhere busy, and it was in- 
evitable that she should regard herself as under a pre- 
ternatural dispensation of some kind ; but, as long as 
she was uncertain of what kind, she kept her judg- 
ment undisturbed, and she thought and reasoned on 
the common subjects of the day like a superior per- 
son of ordinary faculty. 

Society at Avila, as throughout Spain, was stormily 
agitated at the advance of the Reformation. From Ger- 
many it was passing to the Low Countries and into 
France. England, after a short - lived recovery, had 
relapsed into heresy, and dreadful stories were told of 
religious houses suppressed, and monks and nuns break- 
ing their vows and defying heaven by marrying. An- 
tichrist was triumphing, and millions of souls were 
rushing headlong into the pit. Other millious too of 
ignorant Indians, missionaries told her, were perishing 
also for want of vigor in the Church to save them. 
Teresa, since she had seen hell, had a very real horror 
of it. Torment without end ! What heart could bear 
the thought of it ? To rescue any single soul from so 
terrible a fate, she felt ready herself to die a thousand 
deaths ; but what could one poor woman do at such a 
time — a single unit in a Spanish country town ? Some- 
thing was wrong when such catastrophes could happen. 
What the wrong was she thought she saw within the 
limits of her own experience. The religious orders 
were the Church's regular soldiers. Their manual was 
their rule : their weapons were penance, prayer, and 
self-denial ; and as long as they were diligent in the 
use of them, God's favor was secured, and evil could 
not prevail. But the rules had been neglected, penance 



Saint Teresa 177 

laughed at, and prayer become half-hearted. Cloister 
discipline had been accommodated to the maimers of a 
more enlightened age. 

" Hoc fonte devivata clades 
In patriam populumque fluxit." 

Here was the secret of the great revolt from the 
Church, in the opinion of Teresa, and it was at least 
part of the truth ; for the cynical profligacy of the re- 
ligious houses had provoked Germany and England 
more than any other cause. Teresa herself had learned 
how little convent life in Spain could assist a soul in 
search of perfection. At the Incarnation she could not 
keep her vows if she wished to keep them ; for the 
cloister gates were open, and the most earnest desire 
for seclusion could not insure it. Friends who wanted 
a nun to visit them had only to apply to the provincial, 
and the provincial would give a dispensation, not as a 
permission, but as a mandate which was not to be 
disobeyed. 

Puzzled with what she found, Teresa had studied the 
ancient rule of the Carmelite Order before it was re- 
laxed by Engenius the Fourth. If a house could be 
founded where that rule could be again kept, she con- 
sidered, how much easier her own burden would be ; 
how much better God would be served ; and then, per- 
haps, the Church would regain her sh*ength. No im- 
provement could be looked for in the Convent of the 
Incarnation itself. Two hundred women, accustomed 
to indulgences which a Pope had sanctioned, were not 
likely to be induced to submit again to severities. She 
talked of her scheme with her friends in the town. The 
difficulties seemed enormous ; she had no money to 
12 



ITS Sat ." s 

begin with, and hor friends had little. If this obstacle 
could be overcome, she had another and a worse before 
her; she could do nothing without the consent of the 
provincial, and for such a consent she know that it 
would be idle to ask. She was thinking the matter 

one day after communion, when she fell into her 
usual trance. "The Lord " appeared and told her that 
hor design was to be carried out A house was to be 
founded ami was to be dedicated to hor old patron. San 
Josef. It would become a star which would shine over 
the earth. She was to toll hor confessor what He had 
said, and to require him to make no opposition. 

apparition was a natural creation of hor own 
previous musings, but it foil in so completely with her 
wishes that she would not and could not doubt. It 

ired again and again. She wrote an account of it 
by her confessor's orders, and it was submitted to the 
provincial and the bishop, if they hesitated, it was 
but for a moment : they naturally consulted Teresa's 
prioress, and at once the tempest was lot loose, "This 
then," exclaimed the inoensed mother and the rest of 
the sisterhood, "tins is the meaning of the visions wo 
have heard so much of. Sister Teresa thinks herself 
too good for us. We are not holy enough for hor. 
Pretty presumption ! Lot hor keep the rule as u stands 
before she talks of mending it.*' From the convent the 
disturbance passed to the town. The Spaniards had 
no lovo for novelties ; they believed in use, and wont, 
and the quiet maintenance of established things. They 
looked on ecstasies and trances as si ; ;-ns rather of in- 
sanity than sanctity : they thought that people should 
do their duty in the Btate of life to which they had 
boon called, and duty was hard enough without arti- 
ficial additions. Teresa's relations told the provincial 



Saint Teresa 179 

k)i<: was out of ber mind. Some thought a prison would 
be Hi'; best place for ber, others hinted at the Inquisi- 
tion and a possible trial for witchcraft, i f ^r confes or 
called ber scheme a woman's nonsense, and insisted that 
she should think no more of it. 

She went for refuge to hex Master. The Lord told 
ber that she was not to be disturbed ; good things were 
always opposed when first l ; she must wait 

quietly, and all would go well Though Avila seemed 
uuauimous in Its condemnation! there were two prie its 
there of some consequence one a Dominican, the other 
a Franciscan— who were more on a level with the times. 
They saw that something might be made of Teresa, and 
they wrote to their friends in Rome about, heri Her 
Jesuit confessor held to bis own opinion, but a new 
rector came to the college at Avila, with whom thej 
communicated. The rector, after a conversation with 
her, removed the confessor and appointed another. The 
provincial remained obstinate, but the bishop, Alvarez 
de Mendoza, was privately encouraging. Teresa was 
made to feel that she was notdi terted, and, with a now 
spiritual director to comfort her, she took up her proj- 
« el again. 

She was in a difficulty, for she was bound by her vows 
to obey the provincial ; be bad already refused bis per- 
mission, and she dared not apply to him again. But 
she probably knew that an appeal bad been mode to the 
Pope, and, pending the results of this, she thought that 
she might begin ber preparations. She had to be secret 
— almost deceitful, and might have doubted if she was 
!.<■< ping within even the letter of ber duty if her visions 
had been less inspiriting. A widow friend in the to rn 
bought a bouse an if for ber own private occupation. 
Alterations were wanted to make it suitable for a small 



180 Saini Teresa 

convent, and Teresa had no money to pa}' for tliem ; 
but San Josef told her to engage workmen, and that 
the money should be found ; and in fact at that mo- 
ment a remittance came unexpectedly from a brother 
in Lima. She was afraid of the Carmelite authorities. 
The house, Christ told her, should be under the bishop, 
and not under the Order ; she was herself to be the 
superior, and she saw herself robed for office by San 
Josef and the Virgin in person. 

Careful as she was, she still feared that the provincial 
would hear what she was doiug, ami would send her an 
inhibition, to which, if it came, she had resolved to sub- 
mit. It became expedient for her to leave Avila till the 
answer from Borne could arrive. At that moment, most 
conveniently. Dona Aloysia de la Cerda, a sister of the 
Duke of Medina Celi, wrote to the provincial to say 
that she wished Teresa to pay her a visit at her house 
at Toledo. Dona Aloysia was a great lady, whose re- 
quests were commands. The order came to her to go, 
and she was informed by the usual channel that the in- 
vitation had been divinely arranged. She was abseut 
for six months, and became acquainted with the nature 
and habits of Spanish grandees. Dona Aloysia treated 
her with high distinction ; she met other great people, 
and was impressed with their breeding and manners. 
But the splendor was disagreeable. She observed 
shrewdly, that between persons of rank and their at- 
tendants there was a distance which forbade familiarity ; 
if one servant was treated with confidence, the others 
were jealous ; she was herself an object of ill-will 
through Dona Aloysia's friendship ; and she concluded 
that it was a popular error to speak of "Lords and 
Ladies;" for the high friends whom she had made 
were slaves in a thousand ways. Her chief comfort at 



Saint Teresa 181 

Toledo was the Jesuit College, where she studied at 
leisure the details of monastic rule. Her visit was un- 
expectedly ended by a letter from her provincial. The 
feeling in the Incarnation convent had suddenly 
changed ; a party had formed in her favor, who wished 
to choose her as prioress. The provincial, who disliked 
her as much as ever, desired Dona Aloysia privately to 
prevent her from going home ; but " a vision " told 
her that she had prayed for a cross, and a cross she 
should have. She concluded that it was to be the 
threatened promotion, and after a stormy scene with her 
hostess she went her way. 

She was mistaken about the cross. On reaching 
Avila, she found that she had not been elected, but that 
the bull had arrived privately from Rome for her new 
convent. The Pope had placed it under the bishop, as 
" the Lord " had foretold, and the bishop had under- 
taken the charge. The secret had been profoundly 
kept ; the house was ready, and nothing remained but 
to take possession of it. It was to be a house of " Des- 
calzos " (Barefoots), the name by which the reformed 
Order was in future to be known in opposition to the 
Relaxed, the Calzados. The sisters were not to be lit- 
erally "shoeless ;" "a barefoot," as Teresa said, "makes 
a bad beast of burden." They were to wear sandals of 
rope, and, for the rest, they were to be confined to 
the cloister strictly, to eat no meat, to sleep on straw, 
to fast on reduced allowance from September till 
Easter ; they were to do needlework for the benefit of 
the poor, and they were to live on alms without regular 
endowment. Teresa had been careful for their health ; 
the hardships would not be greater than those borne 
without complaint by ordinary Spanish peasants. The 
dress was to be of thick undyed woollen cloth, with no 



LS2 Saint Teresa 

ornament but cleanliness. Dirt, which most saints re- 
garded as a sign of holiness. Teresa always hated The 

number of sisters was to be thirteen ; more, she thought, 
could not live together consistently with discipline. 

Notwithstanding the Tope's bull, difficulty was antici- 
pated. If the purpose was known, the Carmelites would 
find means of preventing the dreaded innovation : an ac- 
complished fact, however, would probably be allowed to 
stand. Teresa selected four poor women as the firsl to 
take the habit, and quietly introduced them into the 
house. She had gone out on leave from her own cloister, 
as if to attend a sick relative, and was thus unobserved. 
On August 24, 1562, ten years exactly before the massa- 
cre of St. Bartholomew, the sacrament was brought into 
the tiny chapel of San Josef's, a bell was hung, mass was 
said, and the new Order had begun to exist. 

Teresa was still bound by her vows to her convent. 
When the ceremony was over, she returned to the Incar- 
nation, half frightened at what she had done. She had 
stirred a hornets' nest, as she was immediately to find. 
The devil attacked her first : he told her that she had 
broken obedience, she had acted without the provincial's 
leave, and had not asked for it because she knew it 
would be refused : her nuns would starve : she herself 
would soon tire of a wretched life in such a wretched 
place, and would pine for her lost comforts. She lay 
down to rest, but was soon roused by a storm. The 
townspeople were the first to discover what hail hap- 
pened. It was easy to foresee the anger of the Carmel- 
ites ; why the townspeople should have been angry is 
less obvious. Perhaps they objected to the establish- 
ment of a colony of professed beggars among them : per- 
haps they were led by the chiefs of the other religious 
Orders. A riot broke out ; the prioress sent for Teresa ; 



Saint Teresa 183 

tlie provincial arrived, hot and indignant. She was re- 
buked, admonished, informed that she had given scan- 
dal, and required fco make instant submission before the 

ibled convent. The Alcalde meanwhile had < 
a meeting of the citizens, where the provincials of the 
Dominicans, Franciscans, and Augustinians attended. A 
resolution was first passed for the instant dissolution of 
the new Louse and the removal of the sacrament ; on 
second thoughts, it was decided to refer the matter, be- 
ing of such high importance, to the Council of State at 
Madrid. Teresa had but one friend to go to. " My 
Lord," she said, on her knees, "this house is not mine, 
it is yours ; all that I could do is done. You must see 
to it." She was not to be disappointed. 

The bishop prevented immediate violence, and Avila 
waited for the action of the Council. The Council was 
in no hurry with an answer. Certain persons wrote to 
Philip ; Philip referred to the Pope, and there were six 
months of suspense, the four poor sisters living as they 
could, and Teresa remaining in disgrace. The town 
authorities cooled ; they said the house might stand if 
anyone would endow it. Afterward, finding that they 
were not likely to be supported from Madrid, they were 
ready to dispense with endowment. On the arrival of 
a fresh bull from Pius the Fifth all remains of opposition 
vanished, except among the Carmelites, and the Carmel- 
ites found it prudent to suppress their objections. Pub- 
lic opinion veered round ; the foundation was declared 
to be a work of God, and Teresa to be His special ser- 
vant, instead of a restless visionary. The provincial 
gave her leave to remove and take charge of her flock. 
The luggage which she took with her from the Incarna- 
tion was a straw mattress, a patched woollen gown, a 
wdiip, and a hair-cloth shirt ; that was all. 



1S1 Saint Teresa 

Thus famished, Blie entered on the five happiest years 
of her life. Other sisters joined, bringing small dowries 
with them, and the number of thirteen was soon filled 

up. Her girls, she says, were angels, perfect especially 
in the virtue of obedience. She would try them by or- 
ders contradictory or absurd ; they did their best with- 
out a question. One sister was told to plant a rotten 
cucumber in the garden ; she merely asked if it was to 
be planted upright or lengthways. 

The visions were without intermission. She was 
taken up to heaven and saw her father and mother 
there. The Virgin gave her a cope, invisible to all eyes 
but her own. which would protect her from mortal sin. 
Once at " hours " she had a very curious experience. 
She fancied that she was a mirror without frame, with- 
out dimensions, with Christ shining in the centre of 
it, and the mirror itself, she knew not how, was in Christ. 
He told her that when a soul was in mortal sin the glass 
was clouded, and though He was present it could not 
reflect Him. With heretics the glass was broken, and 
could never be repaired. 

Heretics and the growth of them still occupied her, 
and the more keenly as the civil war grew more enven- 
omed in France. They were ioo strong, she thought, to 
be overcome by princes and soldiers. In such a contest 
the spiritual arm only could prevail. In a trance she 
saw seven Carmelite monks, of the pristine type, re- 
formed like her own sisterhood, with swords in their 
hands on a battle-field. Their faces were flushed with 
fighting. The ground was strewn with the slain, and 
they were smiting still, and the flying enemy were the 
hosts of Luther and Calvin. These air-drawn pictures, 
lately called illusions of Satan, were now regarded as 
communications direct from heaven. They were too 



Saint Teresa 185 

important to be lost. Her superior ordered her to 
write them down, and the result was the singular auto- 
biography which has hitherto been our guide to her 
history. 

She wrote it unwillingly ; for it is evident that, deeply 
as these communications had affected her, and definitely 
as her spiritual advisers had at length assured her of 
their supernatural origin, she was herself still uncertain 
of their nature. Many of her visions, she was confident, 
had been the creation of her own brain. If any had 
come from another source, she did not regard them as 
of particular importance, or as symptoms of a high state 
of grace. This is certain, from a passage on the subject 
in one of her writings. Hysterical nuns often fancied 
that they had received revelations, and their confessors 
were too apt to encourage them. She says : 

" Of ' revelations ' no account should be made ; for though 
some may be authentic, many are certainly false, and it is 
foolish to look for one truth amidst a hundred lies. It is 
dangerous also, for ' revelations ' are apt to stray from the 
right faith, and the right faith is of immeasurably greater 
consequence. People fancy that to have 'revelations' im- 
plies exceptional holiness. It implies nothing of the kind. 
Holiness can be arrived at only by acts of virtue and by 
keeping the commandments. We women are easily led away 
by our imagination ; we have less strength and less knowl- 
edge than men have, and cannot keep things in their proper 
places. Therefore I will not have my sisters read my own 
books, especially not my autobiography, lest they look for 
revelations for themselves in fancying that they are imitating 
me. The best things that I know came to me by obedience, 
not by revelation. Sisters may have real visions, but they 
must be taught to make light of them. There is a subtle 
deceit in these experiences. The devil may lead souls to 
evil on a spiritual road." 



ISO Saint Teresa 

The priest editor of Teresa's works makes an honest 
observation on this remarkable acknowledgment. " I 
know not how it is," he says, ''but the revelations re- 
ceived by women seem of consequence to men, and those 
received by men of consequence to women." Though 
he pretends that he did not know how it was, he knew 
very well, for he goes on: "It must arise from those 
accursed sexual inclinations — each sex believes most 
where it loves most." He should have drawn one more 
inference — that young men were the worst possible 
spiritual advisers for young women. 

Teresa was not to be left to enjoy her quiet. A single 
convent had hitherto sufficed for her ambition ; but sho 
had been told that it was to be a star which was to shine 
over the earth, and at that solitary taper other flames 
were now to be kindled. The Church of Rome was ral- 
lying from its confusion, and was setting its house in 
order. The clergy were clearing themselves of the 
scandals which had brought such tremendous conse- 
quences on them. The Catholic powers were putting 
out their strength, and Teresa's energetic spirit would not 
allow her to rest. The Carmelites themselves now par- 
tially recognized her value. The General came to Spain, 
and visited her at Avila. He reported what he had seen 
to Philip, and, with Philip's sanction, he sent her powers 
to found other houses of Descalzos, forbidding the pro- 
vincials to interfere with her. The champions whom she 
had seen on the battle-field in a vision had been brothers 
of her reformed Order. The General empowered her to 
establish institutions of men as well as women, if she 
could find recruits who were willing. In other res}3ects 
she was left to herself, and she was to show what a 
single woman, with no resources but her own internal 
force, was able to accomplish. She was now fifty-two, 



Saint Teresa 187 

with bad health, which was growing worse by age. The 
leaders of the Church were awake ; princes and states- 
men were awake ; but the body of the Spanish people 
was still unstirred. She had to contend with official 
pedantry, with the narrow pride of bishops, with the dis- 
like of change, and the jealousies of rival jurisdictions. 
As to barefoot monks, it was long before she could find 
a single man in flesh and blood whom she could tempt 
to join with her. 

Her adventures in the fifteen years of her pilgrimage 
would fill a long volume. We must content ourselves 
with fragmentary incidents of her wanderings, a few 
pictures of persons with whom she came in contact, a 
few glimpses of Peninsular life in the sixteenth century, 
and the human features of a remarkable person still 
traceable behind the paint and tinsel of miracle with 
which her biographers have disfigured Teresa de Ce- 
peda. 

Her first enterprise was at Medina del Campo, a large 
town fifty miles from Avila, on the road to Valladolid, and 
lately the residence of Isabella's Court. A lady of Me- 
dina, of small property, had applied for admission into 
San Josef's, and could not be received for want of room. 
She purchased a house, at Teresa's suggestion, which 
could be turned into a second convent. Difficulties 
were to be anticipated, of the same kind which had been 
encountered at Avila, and promptitude and secrecy were 
again necessary. A house itself was not enough. Me- 
dina could not provide the first sisters, and a colony had 
to be introduced from the parent stock. Teresa set out 
with two nuns from San Josef's, and four from the In- 
carnation, of whom two went with sinking hearts. 
Julian of Avila, the chaplain, was their single male es- 
cort and companion. They travelled in a cart, with a 



1SS Saint Teresa 

picture or two, some candlesticks for the altar— probably 
of tin, for they were utterly poor — a bell, and the sacra- 
ment. To a stranger who met them they must have ap- 
peared like a set of strolling mountebanks. In Avila 
itself they were thought mad, and the bishop had much 
the same opinion, though he would not interfere. It was 
hoi August weather — the eve of the Feast of the Assump- 
tion—and the roads were parched and dusty. On the 
way they were met by the news that the Augustinians, 
whose wall adjoined the building which the lady had 
bought, intended to prevent them from settling there. 
They went on, nothing daunted, and reached Medina at 
nightfall. On the road they had been in danger of be- 
ing arrested as vagrants by the police. Within the gates 
they were in worse peril ; for the next day there was to 
be a bull -light ; and the bulls were being driven in 
through the streets. But nothing could stop Teresa. 
She had resolved to take possession at once, before she 
could be interrupted, and she went straight to her point. 
The party arrived at midnight, and never did intending 
srt tiers in an American forest look round upon a less 
promising scene. The courtyard walls were in ruins, 
the doors were off their hinges, the windows shutterlcss, 
the roof fallen in, the single room which would serve for 
a chapel half open to the air and littered with dirt and 
rubbish. The group and the surroundings would have 
made a subject for Murillo — seven poor women and their 
priest, with the sacrament, for which they were more 
alarmed than for themselves, the desolate wreck of a 
place, ghastly in the moonlight, to which they had come 
expecting to find a home. Four hours of night remained, 
and then daylight would be on them. Teresa's energy 
was equal to the occasion. Not a thought was wasted 
on their accommodation. The sisters were set to clear the 



Saint Teresa 189 

dirt from the chapel. In a garret, the one spot that 
was waterproof, were some tapestries and bed-hanj 

These would protect the altar. They had no nails, and 
at that hour the shops were closed ; hut they picked as 
many as they wanted out of the walls. By dawn the 
altar was furnished, the bell was hung, mass was said, 
and the convent was an instituted fact. 

Sleepless and breakfastless, the unfortunate creatures 
then looked about them, and their hearts sank at their 
prospects. They crept disconsolate into their garret and 
sat watching the sacrament through a window, lest rude 
hands might injure it. In the evening a Jesuit father 
c ime. Teresa begged him to find lodgings for them till 
the house could be put in order ; but the town was full, 
and for a week no suitable rooms could be found. Me- 
dina, naturally, was excited at the strange invasion, and 
was not inclined to be hospitable. At length a charitable 
merchant took compassion. An npper floor was pro- 
vided, where they could live secluded, with a hall for a 
chapel A Senora de Quiroga, a relation perhaps of the 
Archbishop of Toledo, undertook the repairs of the con- 
vent. The citizens relented and gave alms ; and in two 
months the second house of the reformed Descalzos was 
safely established. 

This was in 1567. In the next year a third convent 
was founded at Malaga, with the help of another sister of 
the Duke of Medina Oeli. From Malaga Teresa was 
"sent by the Spirit" to Valladolid, where a young noble- 
man offered a villa and garden. While she was con- 
sidering, the youth died ; he had led a wild life, and she 
was made to know that he was in purgatory, from which 
he was to be released only when the first mass was said 
on the ground which he had dedicated. She flew in- 
stantly across Spain with her faithful Julian. The villa 



190 Saint Teresa 

did not please her ; for it was outside the town, near 
the river, and was reported to be unhealthy. But the 
gardens were beautiful. Valladoiid, stern and sterile in 
winter, grows in spring bright with flowers and musi- 
cal with nightingales. Objections melted before the 
thought of a soul in penal fire. She took possession ; 
the mass was said ; and, as the Host was raised, the 
pardoned benefactor appeared in glory at Julian's side 
ou his way to paradise. Another incident occurred be- 
fore she left the neighborhood. Heresy had stolen into 
Castile : a batch of Lutherans were to be burnt in the 
great square at Valladoiid ; and she heard that they 
meant to die impenitent. That it could be anything but 
right to burn human beings for errors of belief could 
not occur to her ; but she prayed that the Lord would 
turn their hearts, and save their souls, and inflict on her 
as much as she could bear of their purgatorial pains. 
She supposed that she had been taken at her word — the 
heretics recanted at the stake — she herself never after 
knew a day without suffering. 

Toledo came next. She was invited thither by her 
Jesuit friends. She was now famous. On her way she 
passed through Madrid. Curious people came about 
her, prying and asking questions. " What fine streets 
Madrid has ! " was her answer on one such occasion. 
She would not stay there. Philip wished to see her, 
but she had already flown. She had two sisters with 
her to start the colony ; of other property she had four 
ducats, two pictures, two straw pallets, and nothing be- 
sides. She had gone in faith, and faith as usual works 
miracles. Dona Aloysia had not forgiven her desertion, 
and from that quarter there was no assistance ; but a 
house was obtained by some means, and the sisters and 
she, with their possessions, were introduced into it. Of 



Saint Teresa 191 

further provison no care had been taken. It was winter, 
and they had not firewood enough " to boil a herring." 
They were without blankets, and shivered with cold ; 
but they were never more happy, and were almost sorry 
when fresh recruits came in and brought money and or- 
dinary conveniences. 

The recruits were generally of middle rank. "The 
Lord " had said that he did not want members of high 
families ; and Teresa's own expei'ience was not cal- 
culated to diminish her dislike of such great persons. 
Ruy Gomez, Prince of Eboli and Duke of Pastrana, 
was Philip's favorite minister. His wife was the famous 
Ana de Mendoza, whom history has determined to have 
been Philip's mistress. I have told the story else- 
where.* The single evidence for this piece of scandal 
is the presumption that kings must have had mistresses 
of some kind. Antonio Perez says that Philip was 
jealous of his intimacy with her. It is a pity that peo- 
ple will not remember that jealousy has more meanings 
than one. Perez was Philip's secretary. The Princess 
was a proud, intriguing, imperious woman, with whom 
Philip had many difficulties ; and he resented the in- 
fluence which she was able to use in his cabinet. More 
absurd story never fastened itself into human annals, 
none which more signally illustrates the appetite of 
mankind for garbage. For a short period Teresa was 
brought in contact with this high lady, and we catch an 
authentic glimpse of her. She wanted some new excite- 
ment, as ladies of rank occasionally do. She proposed 
to found a nunnery of a distinguished kind. She had 
heard of the Nun of Avila as one of the wonders of the 
day, and she sent for her to Pastrana. Teresa had not 
liked the Princess's letters; but Ruy Gomez was too 
* Vide supra, pp. 118, 119. 



102 Saint Teresa 

great a man to be affronted, and her confessor told her 
that she must go. A farther inducement was a proposal 
held out to her of a house for monks, also of the re- 
formed rule, for which she had been trying hitherto in 
vain. The Princess had a young Carmelite about her, 
a Father Mariano, who was ready to take charge of it. 

Teresa was received at Pastrana with all distinction. 
A casa was ready to receive sisters, but she found that 
the Princess had already chosen a prioress, and that in 
fact the convent was to be a religious plaything of a fash- 
ionable lady. Three months were wasted in discussion ; 
and in the course of them Teresa was questioned about 
her history. The Princess had heard of her autobiog- 
raphy, and begged to see it. She was not vain of her 
visions, and consented only when the Princess promised 
that the book should be read by no one but herself and 
her husband. To her extreme disgust she found that it 
became the common talk of the household, a subject of 
Madrid gossip and of vulgar impertinence. Dona Ana 
herself said scornfully that Teresa was but another Mag- 
dalen de la Cruz, an hysterical dreamer, who had been 
condemned by the Inquisition. 

Ruy Gomez had more sense than his wife, and better 
feeling. The obnoxious prioress was withdrawn, and 
the convent was started on the usual conditions. The 
Barefoot Friars became a reality under Father Mariano, 
whom Teresa liked perhaps better than he deserved. As 
long as Ruy Gomez lived, the Princess did not interfere. 
Unfortunately he survived only a few months, and noth- 
ing would satisfy Dona Ana in her first grief but that 
she must enter the sisterhood herself. She took the 
habit, Mariano having provided her with a special dress 
of rich materials for the occasion. In leaving the world 
she had left behind her neither her pride nor her self- 



Saint Teresa 193 

indulgence. She brought her favorite maid with her. 
She had a separate suite of rooms, and the other sisters 
waited upon her as servants. Teresa had gone back to 
Toledo.* The Princess in her absence quarrelled with 
the prioress, who had been substituted for the woman 
whom she had herself chosen ; and finally she left the 
convent, returned to the castle, and stopped the allow- 
ance on which the sisters depended. 

Teresa, when she heard what had passed, ordered the 
removal of the establishment to Segovia. Two years 
later we find her on the road to Salamanca. It was late 
in autumn, with heavy snow, the roads almost impas- 
sable, and herself suffering from cough and fever. This 
time she had but one companion, a nun older and scarce- 
ly less infirm than herself. "Oh, these journeys!" 
she exclaims. She was sustained only by the recollec- 
tion of the many convents which the "Lutherans" had 
destroyed, and the loss of which she was trying to re- 
pair. It was All Saints' Eve when they reached Sala- 
manca. The church-bells were tolling dismally for the 
departed souls. The Jesuits had promised that she 
should find a habitation ready, but they found it occu- 
pied by students, who at first refused to move. The 
students were with difficulty ejected. It was a great 
straggling place, full of garrets and passages, all filthily 
dirty. The two women entered worn and weary, and 
locked themselves in. The sister was terrified lest some 
loose youth might be left hidden in a corner. Teresa 
found a straw loft, where they laid themselves down, 
but the sister could not rest, and shivered with alarm. 

* The Princess had sent her back in her own carriage. "Pretty 
Baint you, to be travelling in such style as that ! " said a fool to her as 
she drove into Toledo. " Is there no one but this to remind me of my 
faults ? " she said, and she never entered a carriage again. 
13 



194 v ■ 

Teresa asked her what was the matter. "I "was think* 

she said, "what would become of you, dear mother, 

it* 1 V Le, " " Pish, "' said Teresa, who did not 

use, "it will be time to think of that when it 

•. , illj :. tpp< as. Let mo go to sleep " 

Two houses were founded at Alva with the help of 
the Duke and Duchess; and the terrible Ferdinand of 
Toledo, just returned from the Low Count ties, appears 
here with a gentler aspect. Teresa's "Ldfe" was his 
favorite study ; he would travel many leagues, he said, 
only to look upon her. In one of her trances she had 
seen the Three Persons of the Trinity. They were 
painted in miniature under her direction, and she made 
the likenesses exact with herown hand. These pictures 
had fallen into the Duchess's hands, and the miniature 
List was worn by the Duke when ho wont on his 
expedition into Portugal. 

After this Teresa had a vest. In her own town she 
was now looked on as a saint, and the sisters of the [n- 
carnation were able to have their way at last and to 
oleet her prioress. There she was left quiet for three 
years. She had much suffering, seemingly from neu- 
ralgia, hut her spirit was high as ever. Though she 
could not introduce her reformed rule, she could insist 
on the proper observance of the rule as it stood, she 
locked up the locutoria, the parlors where visitors were 
received, keeping the keys herself, and allowing no one 
to he admitted without her knowledge. A youth who 
was in love with one of the nuns, and was not allowed a 
sight of her. insisted once on s-i oino,- Teresa and remon- 
strating. Teresa heard his lamentations, and told him 
then that if ho came near the house again she would 
report him to the Kin;;-, lie found, as he said, "that 
there was no jesting with that woman." One curious 



Scdnt Teresa* L95 

anecdote is told of her reign in the Incarnation, which 
bas the merit of being authentic. Spain was the land 
of chivalry ; knights challenged each other to tilt in the 
lists ; enthusiastic saints challenged one another to feats 
of penance, and some young monks .sent, a cartel of de- 
fiance to Teresa and her convent. Teresa replied for 
herself and the sisters, touching humorously the weak- 
nesses of each of her own party : 

" Sister Anne of Burgos i aye I ha! if any knight will pray 
the Lord to grant her humility, and the prayer is answer* d, 
she will give him all the mej its w hich she may hereafter earn. 

"Sister Beatrice .Inure/, says that she will give to any 
knight who will pray the Lord to give her grace to hold her 
tongue fill she has considered what she has to say, two years 
of the meiits which she has gained in tending the .sick. 

" [sabel ile la Cruz will give two years' merits to any 
knight who will induce the Lord to take away her self -will. 

"Teresa de Jesus says that, if i lit will resolve 

firmly to obey a superior who may be a fool and a glutton, 
she will give him on the (\:iy on which lie forms such a 
resolution half her own merits for that day — or, indeed, the 
whole of them for the whole will be very little." 

The best sal ire of Cervantes is not more dainty. 

The sisters of the incarnation would Lave re elected 
their prioress when the three years were over ; but the 
provincial interfered, and she and lier cart were soon 
again upon the road. She had worse storms waiting 
for her than any which she had yet encountered. 

At PastraSa, besides Mariano, she had become ac- 
quainted with another Carmelite, a Father Gratian, 
who had also become a member of the Descalzos. Gra- 
tian was then about thirty, an eloquent preacher, am- 
bitious, passionate, eager to rule and not so eager to 



196 Saint Teresa 

obey, and therefore no favorite with his superiors On 
I -i this man was to exert an influence beyond Ins 
merits, for lus mind was of a lower type than hers 
Such importance as ho possessed he derived from her 
regard : and after her death he sank into insignificance. 
He still tried to assume consequence, but las proten- 
- were mortified. In a few years he was stripped 
of his habit and reduced to a secular priest. Ho 
wandered about complaining till he was taken by the 
Moors, and was set to work in a slave-yard at Tunis 
Ransomed at last, he became confessor to the Infanta 
Isabella in Flanders, and there died. Bilt it was his 
fate and '. - that before these misfortunes nil 

upon him he was to play a notable part in connection 
with her. He had friends in Andalusia, and he per- 
suaded Teresa that she must found a convent at Seville. 
It was a rash adventure, for her diploma extended only 
to the Castiles. She set out with six sisters and the 
inseparable Julian. The weather was hot, the cart was 
like purgatory, and the roadside posadas, v\ith their 
windowless garrets at oven heat, were, she said. " like 
hell." "The beds were as if stuffed with pebbles" 
Teresa fell into a fever, and her helpless companions 
could only pray for her. When they were crossing the 
Guadalquivir in a pontoon the rope broke. The ferry- 
man was thrown down and hurt ; the boat was swept 
away by the current. They were rescued by a gentle- 
man who had seen the accident from his terrace. Cor- 
dova, when they passed through if, was crowded for a 
fete. The mob. attracted by their strange appearance, 
" came about them like mad bulls." At Seville, where 
Gratian professed io have prepared for their reception, 
they were met by a flat refusal from the archbishop to 
allow the establishment of an unendowed foundation, 



lint Teresa 197 

and to lire on alms only was an essential of their role. 
Teresa was forced to submit. 

"God,* 1 she wrote, " ha i 

of mine to be a world oi I 

had not heard of the objection tiJl I arrived i 
unwilling to yield, for in a i alms 

eonld have been collected without the least difficulty. I 

■ have gone back upon the spot, but I 
all my money having been i Neither 

i -I anything but the clothes i 
and the veils which we had worn in the '•■ .'. \'> it 
mid not have a mass without, the archbishop's leave, 
and li rould not give till we consented." 

But sharper consequences were to follow. In over- 
stepping the boundaries of her province, Teresa had 
rashly committed herself From the first the 
body of the ' bad resented herproce< 

Circumstances and the Pope's protection had hitherto 
shielded her. But Pius the Fifth •■. Q 

thi Thirteenth reigned in his stead, and a chapter- 
era] of the Carmelite Order held at Piacenza in 1575 
obtained an injunction from him prohibiting the further 
ion of the reformed houses. The foundation of 
evilli Convent sated as an act of defiance. 

General ordered its instant suppression Tei 
other foundations had boon hitherto quasi-independent ; 
Father Jerome Tostado was despatched from Italy as 
commissioner to Spain, to reduce them all under the 
General's authority ; and a now nuncio was appointed 
for the special purpose of giving Tostado bis support. 
If Philip objected he was to be told that the violation 
of order bad caused a scandal to the whole Church. 

Little dreaming of what was before her, Teresa had 



193 Sai nt Teresa 

been nourishing a secret ambition of recovering the en- 
tire Carmelite body to their old austerities. The late 
nuncio had been a hearty friend to her. She had writ- 
ten to the King to ask that Gratiau might be appointed 
visitor general of her own houses for the whole peninsula. 
The King had not only consented to this request, but 
with the nuncio's request, irregular as it must have 
seemed, Gratian's jurisdiction was extended to all the 
Carmelite convents in Spain. Philip conld not have 
taken such a step without Teresa's knowledge, or at 
least without Gratian's ; and in this perhaps lies the ex- 
planation of the agitations in Italy and of Tostado's 
mission. Evidently things could not continue as they 
were. Teresa's reforms had been made in the teeth of 
the chiefs of the Order, and her houses, so far as can be 
seen, had been as yet under no organized government at 
all. She might legitimately have asked the nuncio to 
appoint a visitor to these ; for it was through the Pope's 
interference that she had established them ; but she 
was making too bold a venture in grasping at the sover- 
eignty of a vast and powerful foundation, and she very 
nearly ruined herself. Gratian was refused entrance to 
the first convent which he attempted to visit. The new 
briefs arrived from Rome. Teresa received a formal in- 
hibition against founding any more houses. She was 
ordered to select some one convent and to remain 
there; while two prioresses whom she had instituted 
were removed, and superiors in whom Tostado had con- 
fidence were put in their places. Teresa's own writings, 
on which suspicion had hung since they had been read 
by the Princess, were submitted to the Inquisition. She 
herself chose Toledo for a residence, and was kept there 
under arrest for two years. The Inquisitors could find 
no heresy in her books ; and, her pen not being under 



Saint Teresa 199 

restriction, she composed while in confinement a history 
of her foundations as a continuation of her autobiogra- 
phy. Her correspondence besides was voluminous. She 
wrote letters (the handwriting bold, clear, and vigorous 
as a man's) to princes and prelates, to her suffering sis- 
ters, to her friends among the Jesuits and Dominicans. 

The sequel is exceedingly curious. There is a belief 
that the administration of the Roman Church is one and 
indivisible. In this instance it proved very divisible in- 
deed. The new nuncio and the General of the Carmel- 
ites intended to crush Teresa's movement. The King 
and the Archbishop of Toledo were determined that she 
should be supported. The Spanish Government were 
as little inclined as Henry the Eighth to submit to the 
dictation of Italian priests ; and when the nuncio began 
his operations, Philip at once insisted that he should not 
act by himself, but should have four assessors, of whom 
the Archbishop of Toledo should be one. It was less 
easy to deal with Tostado. Each religious order had its 
own separate organization. Teresa had sworn obedience, 
and Tostado was her lawful superior. She acted herself 
as she had taught others to act, and at first refused 
Philip's help in actively resisting him. The nuncio had 
described her as " a restless woman, unsettled, disobe- 
dient, contumacious, an inventor of new doctrines under 
pretence of piety, a breaker of the rule of cloister resi- 
dence, a despiser of the apostolic precept which forbids 
a woman to teach." Restless she had certainly been, 
and her respect for residence had been chiefly shown in 
her anxiety to enforce it on others — but disobedient she 
was not, as she had an opportunity of showing. In 
making the change in the government of her houses, 
Tostado had found a difficulty at San Josef's, because it 
was under the bishop's jurisdiction. The alteration 



200 Saint Teresa 

could not be made without per presence at Avila. He 
sent for her from Toledo. She went at his order, she 
gave him the necessary assistance, and the house was 
reclaimed under his authority. 

By this time temper was running high on all sides. 
Tostado was not softened by Teresa's acquiescence. 
The nuncio was exasperated at the King's interference 
with him. He regarded Teresa herself as the cause of 
the schism, and refused to forgive her till it was healed. 
She was now at Avila. The ofhee of prioress was again 
vacant at the Incarnation. The persecution had endeared 
her to the sisters, and a clear majority of them were 
resolved to re-elect her. Tostado construed their action 
into defiance ; he came in person to hold the election; 
he informed the sisters, of whom there were now a 
hundred, that he would excommunicate every one of 
them who dared to vote for a person of whom he disap- 
proved. The nuns knew that they had the right with 
them, for the Council of Trent had decided that the 
elections were to be free. Fifty-live of them defied 
Tost ado's threats and gave their votes for Teresa. As 
each sister handed in her paper, Tostado crushed it 
under his feet, stamped upon it. cursed her. and boxed 
her ears. The iniuority chose a prioress who was agree- 
able to him ; he declared this nun duly elected, ordered 
Teresa into imprisonment again, and left her supporters 
cutoff from mass and confession till they submitted. 
The brave women would not submit. They refused to 
obey the superior who had been forced on them, except 
as Teresa's substitute. The theologians of Avila de- 
clared unanimously that the excommunication was in- 
valid. Tostado was only the more peremptory. He 
flogged two of the confessors of the convent, who had 
been appointed by the late nuncio, and he sent them 



Saint Teresa 201 

away under a guard. " I wish they were out of the 
power of these people," Teresa wrote. "I would rather 
see them in the hands of the Moors." 

One violence was followed by another. Father Gra- 
tian was next suspended, and withdrew into a hermitage 
al Pastrana. The nuncio, caring nothing about the as- 
»rs, required him to surrender the eon, mission as 
visitor which he had received from his predecessor. 
Gratian consulted the Archbishop of Toledo, who told 
him that he had no more spirit than a fly, and advised 
him to appeal to Philip. The nuncio, without waiting 
for an answer, declared Gratian's commission cancelled. 
He cancelled also Teresa's regulations, and replaced her 
ats under the old relaxed rule. The Bishop of 
Avila was of opinion that the nuncio had exceeded his 
authority and had 710 right to make such a change. Te- 
resa told Gratian that he would be safe in doing what- 
ev< r the Bishop advised ; and she recommended an ap- 
peal to the Pope and the King for a formal division of 
tin Carmelite Order. Tostado had put himself in the 
wrong so completely in his treatment of the sisters of 
the Incarnation, that she overcame her dislike of calling 
in the secular arm and wrote a detailed account of his 
actions lo Philip. Gratian himself lost his head and was 
only foolish. One day he wrote to the nuncio and made 
his submission. The next, he called a chapter of the 
Descalzos and elected a separate provincial. The nuncio 
replied by sending Teresa back as a prisoner to Toledo, 
and Gratian to confinement in a monastery. 

Put the Spanish temper was now thoroughly roused. 
Philip and the Archbishop of Toledo had both private- 
ly communicated with the Pope on the imprudence of 
the nuncio's proceedings ; and ihe King on his own 
account had forbidden the magistrates everywhere to 



202 Saint Teresa 

support either Tostado or Iris agents. The Duke of In- 
fantado, the proudest of the Spanish grandees, insulted 
the nuncio at Court ; and the nuncio, when lie appealed 
to Philip for redress, was told coldly that he had brought, 
the insult upon himself. The Pope, in fact, being better 
informed, and feeling that he would gain little by irri- 
tating the Castilians for the sake of the relaxed Carmel- 
ites, had repented of having been misled, and was only 
eager to repair his mistake. Teresa's apprehensions wero 
relieved by a vision. Christ appeared to her, attended 
by His mother and San Josef. San Josef and the Virgin 
prayed to Him. Christ said "that the infernal powers 
had been in league to ruin the Descalzos ; but they had 
been instituted by himself, and the King in future 
would be their friend ami patron." The Virgin told 
Teresa that in twenty days her imprisonment would be 
over. Not her imprisonment only, but the struggle it- 
self was over. The nuncio and Tostado were recalled to 
Italy. Spain was to keep her "barefoot" nuns and fri- 
ars. "We need not follow the details of the arrangement. 
It is enough to say that the Carmelites were divided 
into two bodies, as Teresa had desired. The Descal- 
zos became a new province, and were left free to choose 
their own officers. We have told the story at so much 
length, because it illustrates remarkably the internal 
character of the Spanish Church and the inability of the 
Italian organization to resist a national impulse. 

All was now well, or would have been well, but for 
mortal infirmity. Gratian went to Rome to settle legal 
technicalities. Teresa resumed her wandering life of 
founding convents. Times were changed since her 
hard fight for San Josef. Town Councils met her now 
in procession. Te Deums were sung in the churches, 
and ea^er crowds waited for her at the roadside inns. 



Saint Teresa 203 

But so far as she herself was concerned, it is a question 
whether success added to her happiness. So long as an 
object is unattained, we may clothe it in such ethereal 
colors as we please ; when it is achieved the ideal has 
become material ; it is as good perhaps as what we 
ought to have expected, but is not what we did expect. 
Teresa was now sixty-four years old, with health irre- 
vocably broken. Her houses having assumed a respect- 
able legal character, many of them had after all to be 
endowed, and she was encumbered with business. " The 
Lord," as she said, continued to help her. When she 
was opposed in anything, the Lord intimated that He 
was displeased. If she doubted, He would reply, " Ego 
.<-"///," and her confessor, if not herself, was satisfied. 
But she had much to do, and disheartening difficulties 
to overcome. She had been working with human be- 
ings for instruments, and human beings will only walk 
straight when the master's eye is on them. In the pre- 
liminary period the separate sisterhoods had been left 
very much to themselves. Some had grown lax. Some 
had been extravagantly ascetic. In San Josef, the first- 
fruits of her travail, the sisters had mutinied for a meat 
diet. A fixed code of laws had to be enforced, and it 
was received with murmurs, even by friends on whom 
she had relied.* She addressed a circular to them all, 
which was characteristically graceful : 

"Now then we are all at peace — Calzados and Descalza- 
dos. Each of us may serve God in our own way, and none 

* Orie of the rules referred to prayers for the King, which were to be 
accompanied by weekly whippings, such as Merlin ordered for the disen- 
chantment of Dulcinea. "Statutum fuit ut perpetuis tcmporibus una 
quotidie Missa, preces item continuae, et una per singulas hebdomadas 
corporis flagellatio pro Rege Hispanias ejusque familia in universis con- 
ventibus Carmelitarum utriusque sexus excalceatorum Deo offeratur." 



204 Saint Teresa 

can say us nay. Therefore, my brothers and sisters, as Ho 
has hoard yourprayor. do you obey Him with all your hearts. 
Lot it not be said of us as of some Orders, that only the be- 
ginnings were creditable. We have begun. Lot those who 
after us go on from good to better. The devil is al- 
ways busy looking for moans to hurt us ; bat the struggle 
will be only for a time ; the end will bo eternal." 

Three years were spent in organization — years of out- 
ward honor, but years of suffering — and then the close 
came. In the autumn of L581 Gratian had arranged 

that a convent was to be opened at Burgos. T. 
was to be present in person, and Gratian accompanied 
her. They seem to have travelled in the old way — a 
party of eight in a covered cart The weather was 
wretched : the floods were out ; the roads mere tracks 
of mud. the inns like Don Quixote's eastle. Teresa was 
shattered with cough : she could eat nothing ; the jour- 
ney was fch< worst to which she had been exposed. On 
arriving at Burgos she was taken to a friend's house ; 
a great tire had been lighted, where she was to dry her 
clothes. The damp and steam brought on fever, and 
she was unable to leave her bed. 

The business part of her visit had been mismanaged. 
Gratian had been SS :is at Seville, and the same 

difficulties repeated themselves. The Council of Trent 
had insisted that all new convents should be endowed. 
The Archbishop of Bur - - 1 by the condition, and 
no endowment had been provided. Teresa was too id 
to return to Avila. Month after month passed by. A 
wet autumn was followed by a wetter winter. Terms 
we're arranged at last with the Archbishop. A building 
was found which it was thought would answer for the 
convent, and Teresa removed to it ; but it was close to 
the water-side and half in ruins. The stars shone and 



Saint Teresa 203 

the rain pomod through the rents of the roof in tho 
garret where she lay. Tho river rose. The lower story 
of the house was Hooded. Tho sisters, who watched day 
ami night by her bed, had to dive into the kitchen for 
the soaked crusts of bread for their own food and hers. 
The communication with tho town being cut off, they 
were nearly starved. Friends at last swam across and 
brought relief. When the river went back, the ground 
floors were deep in stones and gravel. 

Sister Anno of St. Bartholomew, who was herself 
afterward canonized, tells the rest of the story. When 
spring came the weather mended. Teresa was slightly 
Btronger, and, as her own part of tho work at Burgos was 
finished, she was able to move, and was taken to Valla- 
dolid. But it was only to find herself in fresh trouble. 
One of her brothers had left his property to San Josefs. 
Tho relations disputed the will, and an angry lawyer 
forced his way into her room and was rude to her. She 
was in one of her own houses, where at any rate she 
might have looked for kindness. But the prioress had 
gone over to her enemies, shown her little love or rev- 
erence, and at last bade her "go away and never re- 
tarn." 

She went on to Medina. She found the convent in 
disorder ; she was naturally displeased, and found fault. 
Since the legal establishment of the Descalzos she had 
no formal authority, and perhaps she was too imperi- 
ous. The prioress answered impertinently, and Teresa 
was too feeble to contend with her. Twenty years had 
pissed since that gypsy drive from Avila, the ruined 
courtyard, tho extemporized altar, and the moonlight 
watch of the sacrament. It had ended in this. She 
was now a broken old woman, and her own children had 
turned against her. She ate nothing. She lay all night 



206 s tint Tere® 

sleepless, and the next morning she left Medina. She 
had 2 % Avila, but sh - tnted for 

I thither, in spite of her extreme w< ik- 
oess, s was obliged to go. SI t are break- 

^ ley travelled all day 
without fix 3 a few dried figs. Chey arrived at night 
at a small pueblo, all exhaus -1 Teresa fainting ; 

tried to buy an egg or two. but eggs were not to be 
had at the most extravagant price. Teresa swallowed a 
tig. but could touch nothing more. SI - med to be 
dying. Sister Anne knelt sobbing at her side. " Do not 
cry," she said ; M it is the Lord's will." More dead than 
alive, she was carried the next day to Alva. She was just 
is, but that was all. She lay quietly breathing, 
and only seemed uneasy when Sister Anne left her for a 
moment. After a few hours she laid her head on S - t 
Anne's breast, sighed lightly, and was gone. It \\ - 3t 
Michael's Pay. 1582. 

N thing extraordinary was supposed to have hap- 
I at the time. A weak, worn-out woman had died 
of sufte ring's which would have destroyed a 
frame. That was all. Common mortals die thus every 
day. They are buried ; they are mourned for by those 
who had cause to love them ; they are then forgotten, 
and the world goes on with its ordinary business. Cath- 
olic saints are not let't to rest so peacefully, and some- 
thing has still to be told of the fortunes of T 
of Avila. But we must first touch for a moxoei 

ts of her character which we have passed over in 
the rapid sketch of her life. It is the more nee,-- ■ 
since she has beeu deitied into an idol, and the tender- 
as, the humor, the truth, and simplicity of her human 
nature, have been lost in her diviner glories, 
volumes of her let! - ssays, treatises, memoranda of 



Saint Teresa 207 

various kinds, survive in addition to her biography. 
With the help of these we can fill in the lines. 

She was not learned. She read Latin with difficulty, 
and knew nothing of any other language except her own. 
She was a Spaniard to the heart, generous, chivalrous, 
and brave. In conversation she was quick and bright. 
Like her father, she was never heard to speak ill of any- 
one. But she hated lies, hated all manner of insincerity, 
either in word or action. In youth she had been tried 
by the usual temptations ; her life had been spotless ; 
but those whose conduct has been the purest are 
most conscious of their smaller faults, and she had the 
worst opinion of her own merits. The rule which she 
established for her sisterhoods was severe, but it was 
not enough for her own necessities. She scourged her- 
self habitually, and she wore a peculiarly painful hair- 
cloth ; but these were for herself alone, and she did not 
prescribe them to others. She sent her hair shirt to her 
brother, but she bade him be careful how he used it. 
"Obedience," she said, "was better than sacrifice, and 
health than penance." One of her greatest difficulties 
was to check the zeal of young people who wished to 
make saints of themselves by force. A prioress at Malaga 
had ordered the sisters to strike one another, with a view 
of teaching them humility. Teresa said it was a sug- 
gestion of the devil. " The sisters are not slaves," she 
wrote ; " mortifications are of no use in themselves ; obe- 
dience is the first of virtues, but it is not to be abused." 
The prioress of Toledo again drew a sharp rebuke upon 
herself. She had told a sister who had troubled her 
with some question to go and walk in the garden. The 
sister went, and walked and walked. She was missed 
the next morning at matins. She Avas still walking. 
Another prioress gave the Penitential Psalms for a gen- 



208 Saint Teresa 

eral discipline, and kept the sisters repeating them at 
irregular hours. " The poor things ought to have been 
in bed," Teresa wrote. " They do what they are told, 
but it is all wrong. Mortification is not a thing of ob- 
ligation." 

Gratian himself had to be lectured. He had been 
inventing new ceremonies. " Sister Antonia," she 
wrote, " has brought your orders, and they have scan- 
dalized us. Believe me, father, we are well as wo 
are, and want no unnecessary forms. For charity's 
sake, remember this. Iusist on the rules, and let that 
suffice." Gratian had given injunctions in detail about 
dress and food. " Do as you like," she said, " only 
do not define what our shoes are to be made of. Say 
simply, we may wear shoes, to avoid scruples. You 
say our caps are to be of hemp — why not of flax '? 
As to our eating eggs, or eating preserves on our bread, 
leave it to conscience. Too much precision only does 
harm." 

Her own undergarments, though scrupulously kept 
clean, were of horse-cloth. She slept always on a 
sack of straw. A biscuit or two, an egg, a few peas 
and beans, made her daily food, varied, perhaps, on 
feast-days with an egg and a slice of fish, with grapes 
or raisins. 

Her constant trances were more a trial than a pleas- 
ure to her. She writes to her brother : " Buen anda Xu- 
estro Senor. I have been in a sad state for this week 
past. The fits have returned. They come on me some- 
times in public and I can neither resist nor hide them. 
God spare me these exhibitions of myself. I feel half 
drunk. Pray for me, for such things do me harm. They 
have nothing to do with religion." 

Nothing can be wiser than her general directions for 



Saint Teresa 209 

the management of the sisterhoods. To the sisters them- 
selves she says : 



"Do not bo curious about matters which do not concern 
you. Say no evil of anyone but yourself, and do not listen to 
any. Never ridicule anyone. Do not contend in words about 
things of no consequence. Do not exaggerate. Assert noth- 
ing as a fact of which you are not sure. Give no hasty 
opinions. Avoid empty tattle. Do not draw comparisons. 
Be not singular in food or dress; and be not loud in your 
laughter. Be gentle to others and severe to yourself. Speafc 
courteously to servants. Do not note other people's faults. 
Note your own faults, and their good points. Never boast. 
Never make excuses. Never do anything when alone which 
you would not do before others." 



Her greatest difficulty was with the convent confessors. 
Teresa had a poor opinion of men's capacities for under- 
standing women. "We women," she said, "are not so 
easily read. Priests may hear our confessions for years 
and may know nothing about us. Women cannot de- 
scribe their faults accurately, and the confessor judges 
by what they tell him." She had a particular dislike of 
melancholy women who fancied that they had fine sen- 
sibilities which were not understood or appreciated. Sbo 
found that confessors became foolishly interested in such 
women, and confidences came, and spiritual communica- 
tions of mutual feelings, which were nonsense in them- 
selves and a certain road to mischief. Teresa perhaps 
remembered some of her own experiences in her exces- 
sive alarm on this point. She insisted that the con- 
fessor should have no intercourse with any sister, except 
officially, and in the confessional itself. At the direction 
of her superiors, she wrote further a paper of general 
14 



210 Saint Tttwa 

reflections on the visitation of convents, which show the 
same insight and good sense. 

The visitor was the provincial or the provincial's vicar, 
and his business was to inspect each convent once a year. 

" The visitor," she said, " must have impartiality, and, above 
all, no weakness or sentimentality. A superior must inspire 
fear. If he allows himself to be treated as an equal, espec- 
ially by women, his power for good has gone. Once lei a 

woman see that he will pass over her faults out of tenderness, 
she will become ungovernable. If he is to err, let it be on 
the side of severity. He visits once only in a twelvemonth, 
and unless the sisters know that at the end of each they will 
be called to a sharp reckoning, discipline will be impossible. 
Prioresses found unlit for office must be removed instantly. 
Thev may be saints in their personal conduct, but they may 
want the qualities essential to a ruler, ami the visitor must 
not hesitate. 

'•lie must look strictly into the accounts. Debt of any 
kind is fatal. He must see into the work which each sister 
has done, and how much she has earned by it. This will en- 
courage industry. Each room in the house must be ex- 
amined, the parlor gratings especially, that no one may 
enter unobserved. The visitor must be careful, too, with 
the chaplains, loam to whom each sister confesses, and what 
degree of communication exists between them. The prioress, 
as long as sin 1 retains office, must always be supported. 
Then' can bo no peace without authority, and sisters some- 
times think they are wiser than their superiors. No respect 
must be shown for morbid feelings. The visitor must make 
such women understand that if they do wrong they will be 
punished, and that he is not to be imposed upon. 

" As to the prioress, he must learn first if she has favorites ; 
and he must be careful in this, for it is her duty to consult 
most with the most discreet of the sisters; but it is the 
nature of us to overvalue our own selves. When preference 
is shown, there will be jealousy. The favorite will be sup- 



Saint Teresa 21 1 

posed to role the Holy Mother : the rest will think that they 
have a right to resist. 8i fc< n who may be far from perfect 
themselves will be ready enough to find fault. They will 

tell the visitor that the j>. is and that. He will 

be perplexed what to think ; yet be wiJJ do infinite harm if 
he orders changes which ax; not Deeded. His guide 
be the Bole of the Order. If ho finds that the prioress 
dispenses with the rule on insufficient grounds, think- 
ing this a small thing and that a small thing, he may be sure 
that she IS doing no good. She holds office to maintain the 
rule, not to 'li pen ;e will) it. 

" A prioress i i obviously unfit who has anything to conceal, 

The Bisters mat. he made to tell the truth; they will not 
directly li'-, perhaps, but they will often keep back what 
ought to be known. 

"Prioresses often overload the sisters with prayers and 
penau' to hurt their health. The sisters are j.fraid 

to complain, lest they be thought wanting in devotion ; nor 
ought they to complain, except to the visitor. . . . The 
visitor, therefore, must be careful about this. Especially let 
him be on Id's guard against saintly prioresses. The first and 
last principle in managing women is to make them feel that 
they have a head over them who will not be moved by any 
earthly consideration ; thai, they are to observe tbeii 
and will be punished if they break them; that his visit is 
not an annual ceremony, but that he keeps his eye on the 
daily life of the whole establishment. Women generally are 
honorable and timid; they will think it wrong sometimes 
to report the prioress's faults. He will want all his dis- 
cretion. 

"He should inquire about the singing in the choir; it 
ought not to be loud or ambitious ; fine singing disturbs de- 
votion, and the singers will like to be admired. He should 
notice the dresses, too ; if he observe any ornamenl 

dress, lie should burn it publicly. This will be a 
to her. He should make his inspection in the morn- 
ing, and never stay to dinner, though he be pressed ; he 
. to do business, not to talk. If he does stay, there 



319 Saint Tmvsa 

must only bo a modest entertainment, I know not how to 
prevent excess in this respect, for our presenl chief never 
notices what is put before him — whether it i* good or badj 
much or little.'* I doubt whether ho even understands. 

•• Finally the visitor must be careful how ho shows by any 
outward sign that ho has a speoial regard for the prioress. 
If ho does, the sisters will not toll him what she reallj is. 
Each of them knows that she is heard but onoe, while the 
prioress has as muoh time as she likes for explanations and 
excuses. The prioress may not moan to deoeive, but self- 
love blinds tis all. 1 have boon myself taken in repeatedly 
by mother superiors who wore such servants of God thai I 
could not help believing them. After a few days 1 residence, 
I have boon astonished to find how misled I had boon. The 
devil, having few opportunities of tempting the sisters, at- 
tacks the superiors instead. I trust none of them till 1 have 
examined with my own eyes.'" 

Shrewder eyes were not perhaps in Spain. u You 
deceived me in saying' she was a woman," wrote Olio 
oi Teresa's confessors. " She is a bearded man." 

To return io her story. She died, as has been said, 
at Alva, and there was nothing' at first to distinguish 
her departure from that of ordinary persons. She had 
fought a long battle. She had won the victory ; but 
the dust of the conflict was sttll living; detraction was 
still busy ; and honor with the best deserving is seldom 
immediately bestowed. The air has to clear, the pas- 
sions to cool, and the spoils of the campaign to be 
gathered, before either the thing - accomplished or the 
doer's merits can be properly recognized. Teresa's work 
was finished ; but she had enemies who hated her ; half 
friends who were envious and jealous ; and a world of 

* This wa< meant as a hint to Gratian, who was muoh too fond of 
dining with the sisterhoods. Perhaps much of the rest was also in- 
tended tor him. 



Saint Teresa 213 

people besides, to say that the work was nothing very 
wonderful, and that they could Lave done as well them- 
selves if they had thought it worth while. 

It is always thus when persons of genuine merit first 
leave the earth. As long as they are alive and active 
they make their power felt ; and when they are looked 
back upon from a distance they can be seen towering 
lii''li above their contemporaries. Their contempora- 
ries, however, less easily admit the difference ; and when 
the overmastering presence is first removed, and they no 
longer feel the weight of it, they deny that any differ- 
ence exists. 

Teresa was buried where she died. Spanish tombs 
are usually longitudinal holes perforated in blocks of 
masonry. The coffin is introduced ; the opening is 
walled up ; and a tablet with an inscription indicates 
and protects the spot. In one of these apertures at- 
tached to the Alva convent Teresa was placed. The 
wooden coffin, hastily nailed together, was covered with 
quicklime and earth. Massive stones were built in after 
it, and were faced with solid masonry. There she was 
left to rest ; to be regarded, as it seemed, with passionate 
affection by the sisters who survived her, and then to 
fade into a shadow, and be remembered no more for- 
ever. But the love of those sisters was too intense, 
and their faith too deep. " Calumny," says Sir Arthur 
Helps, " can make a cloud seem a mountain ; can even 
make a cloud become a mountain." Love and faith are 
no less powerful enchanters, and can convert into facts 
the airy phantoms of the brain. The sisters when they 
passed her resting-place paused to think of her, and her 
figure as it came back to them breathed fragrance sweet 
as violets. Father Gratian, who had been absent from 
the deathbed, came on a visitation to the convent nine 



214 Saint Teresa 

months after. His imagination was as active as that of 
the sisterhood ; he perceived, not the violet odor only, 
but a fragrant oil oozing between the stones. The tomb 
was opened, the lid of the coffin was found broken, and 
the earth had fallen through. The face was discolored, 
but the flesh was uncorrupted, and the cause of the odor 
was at once apparent in the ineffable sweetness which 
distilled from it. The body was taken out and washed, 
Gratian cut off the left hand and secured it for himself. 
Thus mutilated, the body itself was replaced, and Gra- 
tian carried off his prize, which instantly worked mir- 
acles. The Jesuit Eibera, who was afterward Teresa's 
biographer, and had been present at the opening, saved 
part of the earth. He found it " sweet as the bone of 
St. Lawrence which was preserved at Avila." The story 
flew from lip to lip. Gratian, zealous for the honor of 
the reformed branch of the Carmelites, called a chapter, 
and brought his evidence before it that their founder 
was a saint. Teresa's communications with the other 
world at once assumed a more awful aspect. The chap- 
ter decided that, as at Avila she was born, as at Avila 
she was first admitted to converse with Christ, and as 
there was her first foundation, to Avila her remains must 
be removed, and be laid in the chapel of San Josef. 
The sisters at Alva wept, but submitted. They were 
allowed to keep the remnant of the arm from which 
Gratian had taken off the hand. Other small portions 
were furtively abstracted. The rest was solemnly trans- 
ferred. 

This was in 1585, three years after her death. But 
it was not to be the end. The Alva family had the 
deepest reverence for Teresa. The Great Duke was 
gone, but his son who succeeded him, and his brother, 
the Prince of St. John's, inherited his feelings. They 



Saint Teresa 215 

were absent at the removal, and had not been consulted. 
When they heard of it, they held their town to have 
been injured and their personal honor to have been out- 
raged. They were powerful. They appealed to Rome, 
and were successful. Sixtus the Fifth, in 1586, sent an 
order to give them back their precious possession, and 
Teresa, who had been a wanderer so long, was sent again 
upon her travels. A splendid tomb had been prepared 
in the convent chapel at Alva, and the body, brought 
back again from Avila, lay in state in the choir before it 
was deposited there. The chapel was crowded with 
spectators ; the Duke and Duchess were present with a 
train of nobles, the Provincial Gratian, and a throng of 
dignitaries, lay and ecclesiastic. The features were still 
earth-stained, but were otherwise unaltered. The mi- 
raculous perfume was overpowering. Ribera contrived 
to kiss the sacred foot, and to touch the remaining arm. 
He feared to wash his hands afterward, lest he should 
wash away the fragrance ; but he found, to his delight, 
that no washing affected it. Gratian took another ringer 
for himself ; a nun in an ecstacy bit out a portion of 
skin ; and for this time the obsequies were ended. Yet, 
again, there was another disentombment, that Teresa 
might be more magnificently coffined, and the General 
of the Carmelites came from Italy that he might see 
her. This time, the Pope had enjoined that there 
should be no more mutilation ; but nothing could re- 
strain the hunger of affection. Illustrious persons who 
were present, in spite of Pope and decency, required 
relics, and were not to be denied. The General distrib- 
uted portions among the Alva sisterhood. The eye- 
witness who describes the scene was made happy by a 
single finger-joint. The General himself shocked the 
feelings or roused the envy of the bystanders by tearing 



216 Saint Teresa 

out an entire rib. Then it was over, and all that re- 
mained of Teresa was left to the worms. 

But the last act had still to be performed. Spanish 
opinion had declared Teresa to be a saint ; the Church 
had to ratify the verdict. Time had first to elapse for 
the relics to work miracles in sufficient quantity, and 
promotion to the highest spiritual rank could only be 
gradual and deliberate. Teresa was admitted to the 
lower degree of beatification by Paul the Fifth in 1G14. 
She was canonized (relet t a inter Dcos) eight years later 
by Gregory the Fifteenth, in the company of St. Isi- 
dore, Ignatius Loyola, Francis Xavier, and Philip Neri. 
If a life of singular self-devotion in the cause of Catho- 
lic Christianity could merit so lofty a distinction, no one 
will challenge Teresa's claim to it. She had been an 
admirable woman, and as such deserved to be remem- 
bered. But she was to be made into an object of pop- 
ular worship, and evidence of mere human excellence 
was not sufficient. A string of miracles were proved to 
have been worked by her in her lifetime, the witnesses 
to the facts being duly summoned and examined. Her 
sad, pathetic death-scene was turned into a phantasma- 
goria. Old people were brought to swear that the Con- 
vent Church had been mysteriously illuminated ; Christ 
and a company of angels had stood at the bedside to re- 
ceive the parting soul ; and the room had been full of 
white floating figures, presumed to be the eleven thou- 
sand virgins. Others said that a white dove had flown 
out of her mouth when she died, and had vanished 
through the window, while a dead tree in the garden was 
found next morning covered with white blossom. 

The action of the relics had been still more wonder- 
ful. If cut or punctured they bled. They had con- 
tinued uncorrupted. They were still fragrant. A crip- 



Saint Teresa 217 

plo at Avila bad been restored to strength by touching a 
fragment ; a sister at Malaga with three cancers on her 
breast had been perfectly cured — with much more of 
the same kind. 

Next the solemn doctors examined Teresa's character, 
her virtues of the first degree, her virtues of the second 
degree, the essentials of sanctitas in specie. Faith, Hope, 
Charity, love of Christ, were found all satisfactory. Her 
tears at the death of Pius the Fifth proved her loyalty 
to the Church. The exceptional features followed, her 
struggles with the cacodajmon, her stainless chastity, 
her voluntary poverty, her penance, her whip, her hair- 
cloth, her obedience, her respect for priests, her daily 
communion, her endurance of the devil's torments, and, 
as the crown of the whole, her intercourse with San Jo- 
sef, the Virgin, and her Son. 

Her advocate made a splendid oration to the Pope. 
The Pope referred judgment to the Cardinals, Arch- 
bishops, and Bishops, whose voices were unanimous, 
and Teresa was declared a member of the already glori- 
fied company to whom prayers might lawfully be ut- 
tered. 

Teresa's image still stands in the Castilian churches. 
The faithful crowd about her with their offerings, and 
dream that they leave behind them their aches and 
pains ; but her words were forgotten, and her rules sank 
again into neglect. The Church of Rome would have 
done better in keeping alive Teresa's spirit than in con- 
verting her into a goddess. Yet the Church of Piome is 
not peculiarly guilty, and we all do the same thing in 
our own way. When a great teacher dies who has told 
us truths which it would be disagreeable to act upon, we 
write adoring lives of him, we place him in the intel- 
lectual pantheon ; but we go on as if he had never lived 



218 Saint Teresa 

at all. We put up statues to him as if that would do as 
well, and the prophet who has denounced idols is made 
an idol himself. Yet good seed scattered broadcast is 
never wholly wasted. Though dying out iu Spain and 
Italy, the Carmelite Sisterhoods are reviving in North- 
ern Europe, and they owe such life as they now possess 
to Teresa of Avila. The nuns of Compiegne, who in 
1794 fell under the displeasure of Robespierre, were 
Carmelites of Teresa's order. Vergniaud and his twenty- 
two companions sang the Marseillaise at the scaffold, the 
surviving voices keeping up the chorus, as their heads 
fell one by one till all were gone. Teresa's thirteen 
sisters at Compiegne sang the " Veni Creator" as the 
knife of the Convention made an end of them, the 
prioress singing the last verse alone amid the bodies 
of her murdered dock. 



THE TEMPLARS 



I have chosen, I fear, a somewhat remote subject for 
these lectures,* and the remoteness is not the only ob- 
jection. I might have gone farther back, and 3*et been 
nearer to our modern interests. I might have given you 
an account, had I known anything about the matter, of 
the people who lived in the pile-dwellings in the Swiss 
lakes ; or of the old sea-rovers who piled up the kitchen 
middens on the shores of the Baltic ; or I might have 
gone back to the primeval missing link between us and 
the apes, the creatures who split the bones which we 
find in Kent's Cavern, and were the contemporaries of 
the cave bears and the big cats who then lived in these 
islands. In talking about any of these, I should have 
been on a level with modern curiosity. We are all 
eager to know more about these ancestors of ours, since 
Darwin has thrown doubts upon our supernatural origin. 
At any rate, however, I shall not ask you to go so far 
back with me by a good many thousand years. The 
military orders of the Middle Ages, if different from 
ourselves, are but creatures of yesterday in comparison, 
and there is an interest even of a scientific kind in ob- 
serving the strangely varied forms which human nature 
is capable of assuming. Whatever has come out of man 
lies somewhere in the character of man. Human nature 

* These papers were originally lectures delivered at Edinburgh before 
the Philosophical Institution in 1885. 



220 The Templars 

is said to be always the same ; but it is the same only in 
the sense that the crab-apple and the endless varieties 
of garden apples are the same. Analyze the elements 
and you find them to appearance the same. There is 
some force in the seed (we cannot tell what) which 
makes one plant a crab and another a fruit-tree. In 
the man the difference lies in the convictions which he 
entertains about his origin, his duties, his responsibili- 
ties, his powers. With him, too, there is an original 
vital force which will make each individual something 
different from his neighbor ; but the generic type is 
formed by his creed. As his belief, so is his character. 
According to his views of what life is given him for, he 
becomes a warrior, a saint, a patriot, a rascal, a sensual- 
ist, or a comfortable man of business, who keeps his 
eye on the main chance, and does not go into dreams. 
And as you look along the ages you see a tendency in 
masses of men to drift into one or other of these forms. 

Carlyle tells of a conversation at which he was once 
present in this city more than fifty-six years ago. Some- 
one was talking of the mischief which beliefs had pro- 
duced in the world. "Yes," Carlyle said, "belief has 
done much evil ; but it has done all the good." We do 
not, we cannot certainly know what we are, or where we 
are going. But if we believe nobly about ourselves, we 
have a chance of living nobly. If we believe basely, 
base we shall certainly become. 

In a lecture which I had once the honor of addressing 
you in this place I spoke of the effect of the Reforma- 
tion on the Scotch character. I described it as like turn- 
ing iron into steel. Thex-e had been steel enough before 
among the lairds and barons, but the people had been 
soft metal ; they followed their chiefs, going this way 
and that way as they were told. After Knox's time they 



The Templars 221 

bad wills of their own, and we all know what they be- 
came. The military Orders about whom I am now to 
speak grew into a shape at least equally noticeable. 
Their history is extremely curious. It raises the most 
intricate questions as to the value of historical evidence. 
It illustrates both sides of belief, the good of it and the 
evil of it. I speak of Orders, but I shall confine myself 
to one — to the Order of the Templars. There were 
three great military Orders — the Templars, the Knights 
Hospitalers, and the Teutonic Knights. Other smaller 
bodies of the same kind grew up beside them ; but it 
was in the Templars that the idea, if I may call it so, 
was perfectly realized. To understand them is to under- 
stand the whole subject. 

Scotch and English people, when they hear of Tem- 
plars, all think instinctively of Brian de Bois Guilbert. 
In Sir Brian a Templar stands before us, or seems to 
stand, in flesh and blood, and beside him stands Scott's 
other Templar, Sir Giles Amaury, the Grand Master, in 
" The Talisman." No one can doubt that we have here 
real men, as distinct as genius could produce. The 
Germans say that when a genuine character has been 
brought into being, it matters nothing whether such a 
figure ever existed in space and time. The creative 
spirit has brought him forth somehow, and he belongs 
thenceforward to the category of real existences. Men, 
doubtless, Sir Brian and Sir Giles both were ; but Scott, 
like Homer, sometimes slept. They were men, but in 
one important respect, at least, they were not Templars. 
Rebecca calls Sir Brian a perjured priest. Sir Giles 
Amaury hears Conrad's confession before he gives him 
absolution with his dagger. The Templars were not 
priests ; they were laymen as much as kings and barons. 
They bound themselves by the three monastic vows of 



222 The Teinplars 

poverty, chastity, and obedience. They were, as a re- 
ligious order, subject to the Pope, and soldiers of the 
Church. Other orders they had none. They had chap- 
lains affiliated, who said mass for them and absolved 
them. But these chaplains were separate and subordi- 
nate. They could hold no rank in the society. Grand 
Masters, preceptors, priors, were always lay. They were 
a new thing in Christendom, as St. Bernard said. The 
business of priests was to pray. The business of the 
knights was to pray, too, but only as all other men 
prayed. Their peculiar work was to fight. Sir Walter 
was an Episcopalian, but owing, perhaps, to his North 
British training, he never completely apprehended the 
great mystery of apostolical succession. To him a monk 
was a priest. "We in this generation, who have learned 
the awful nature of the difference, must clear our minds 
of that error, at any rate. 

Now for what the Templars were. 

A good many of us have probably been in the Tem- 
ple Church in London. The Templars were famous for 
the beauty of their churches, and this particular church, 
now that the old pews have been cleared out, is almost in 
the condition in which they left it. In the ante-chapel 
there lie on the floor the figures of nine warriors, rep- 
resented, not as dead or asleep, but reclining as they 
might have reclined in life, modelled all of them with 
the highest contemporary art, figures that have only to 
rise to their feet to stand before us as they actually 
were when quick and breathing on earth. The origi- 
nals of them, if they are rightly named, were not 
themselves Templars ; they were great Barons and 
Statesmen. But they were associates of the Order, and 
in dress and appearance doubtless closely resembled 
them. They are extremely noble figures. Pride is in 



The Templars 223 

every line of their features, pride in every undulation 
of their forms ; but it is not base, personal pride. 
There is the spirit in them of the soldier, the spirit of 
the s;iini, the spirit of the feudal ruler, and the spirit of 
the Catholic Church — as if in them was combined the 
(iii iic genius of the age, the pride of feudalism, and the 
pride of the Church, the pride of a soul disdainful of all 
persona] ease or personal ambition. 

That thej were placed where they are, and that they 
were allowed to remain there, is at least some indi- 
cation that the charges on which the Templars wero 
condemned found no belief in England. The monu- 
ments of the Pcmbrokes would never have been allowed 
to re-main in a scene which had been desecrated by un- 
imaginable infamies. What the charges were, and how 
the Order fell, it will be my business to tell you. I have 
no cause to defend, or sympathy to tempt me to make 
out a case one way or the other. The Templars in 
Europe, if they had been allowed to survive, would have 
become the Pope's Janissaries, ami so far as I have any 
special leaning in those mediaeval quarrels, it is toward 
the Civil Powers and not, toward the Church. I believe 
that, it would have been worse for Europe, and not bet- 
ter, if the Popes Lad been able to maintain their pre- 
tensions. If it had really been made out that there was 
as much vice in the Templars' houses as there undoubt- 
edly was among the other celibate Orders, there would 
have been nothing in it to surprise me, and it would 
have interfered with no theory of mine. So now I will 
go on with the story. 

The Templars grew out of the Crusades — that supreme 
folly of the Middle Ages, as it is the fashion now to call 
them. For myself, I no more call the Crusades folly 
than I call the eruption of a volcano folly, or the French 



224 The Templars 

Revolution folly, or any other bursting up of the lava 
which lies in nature or in the hearts of mankind. It is 
the way iu which nature is pleased to shape the crust of 
the earth and to shape human society. Our business 
with these things is to understand them, not to sit in 
judgment on them. 

In the eleventh century a great wave of religious en- 
thusiasm passed over Christendom. Men bad expected 
that the world would end at the year 1000. When it 
did not end, and went on as before, instead of growing 
careless, they grew more devout The Popes, under the 
influence of this pious emotion, acquired a universal 
and practical authority, such as had never before been 
conceded to them. Religion became the ruling princi- 
ple of life to an extent which has never perhaps been 
equalled, save in Protestant countries in the century 
which succeeded the Reformation. There was then one 
faith in western Christendom, one Church, and one Pope. 
The creed, if you please, was alloyed with superstition, 
but the power of it, so long as the superstition was sin- 
cere, was not less on that account, but was greater ; and 
Christendom became capable of a united action which 
had not before been possible. In times when religion is 
alive Christianity is not a history, but a personal expe- 
rience. Christ himself was supposed to be visibly pres- 
ent on the altar of every church and chapel. His moth- 
er, the apostles, and the saints were actively at work 
round the daily life of everyone. The particular part 
of the earth where the Saviour had been born and had 
lived, where the mystery of human redemption had been 
wrought out, where occurred all the incidents which 
form the subject of the Gospel story, Nazareth and Ca- 
pernaum, Bethlehem and Jerusalem, acquired a pas- 
sionate interest in proportion to the depth of the belief. 



The Templars 225 

People didn't travel in those days for amusement. 
There was no Mr. Cook to lead them in flocks over the 
globe, or Murray's Handbooks, or omnibuses making 
the round of the Pyramids, but they travelled a great 
deal for their own purposes ; they travelled to scenes of 
martyrdom and to shrines of saints ; they travelled for 
the good of their souls. We go ourselves to Stratford- 
on-Avon, or to Ferney, or to Abbotsford ; some of us 
go already to Ecclefechan and Craigenputtock, and the 
stream in that direction will by and by be a large one. 
Multiply the feeling which sends us to these spots a 
thousand-fold, and you may then conceive the attrac- 
tions which the Holy Places in Palestine had for Catho- 
lic Christians in the eleventh century. Christ was all 
which gave the world and their own lives in it any 
real significance. It was not a ridiculous feeling on 
their part, but a very beautiful one. Some philoso- 
pher after reading the Iliad is said to have asked, " But 
what does it prove ? " A good many people have asked 
of what use pilgrimages were. It depends on whether 
we have got souls or not. If we have none, the Iliad is 
a jumble of nonsense, and the pilgrim's cockle-shell was 
no better than a fool's cap and bells. But the prevail- 
ing opinion for the present is, that we have souls. 

From the beginning there had been pilgrimages to 
the Holy Places. Even after the Saracens had con- 
quered Palestine the caliphs had so far respected Chris- 
tian piety as to leave the Holy Sejiulchre undesecrated 
and allow pilgrims to go and come unmolested. But 
the caliphs' empire was now disturbed by the wild 
tribes from the north behind the Caspian Sea, who had 
poured down into Syria. New and fiercer bands of Ma- 
hometans had possession of Palestine, and just when 
Europe was under the influence of the most powerful 
15 



226 The Templara 

religious emotion, and had become able (o combine to 
give effect to it, the Seljuks, Turcomans, miscellaneous 
Arabian robbers, became masters of the one spot on 
earth which was most sacred in the eyes of the western 
nations, and the pilgrims bad no longer access to it. 

With a single impulse Christian Europe rose. They 
rushed blindly at their object, without preparation, 
without provision, half of them without arms, trusting 
that as they were on Cod's service Clod would provide. 
Famine, disease, the sword swept them away in multi- 
tudes, and multitudes more followed, to die like 1 the rest. 
The crusades altogether are supposed to have oost six 
million lives, some say ten ; but t ho end was for a time 
attained. In the last deeade of the eleventh century 
Godfrey of Bouillon fought his way into Palestine with 
sixty thousand princes, peers, knights, and their own 
personal followers. He took Jerusalem. He made a 
Latin kingdom of it. For eighty-seven years the Holy 
City was ruled by a Christian sovereign ; Palestine was 
distributed info fiefs, to he held by knights serving un- 
der the King of Jerusalem ; and Christian Europe be- 
lieved tint it had don,' its duty. Alas! it had hut half 
done it. The object was to open the Holy Places again 
to western piety. Jerusalem might be Christian, but 
the country between Jerusalem and the sea, swarmed 
with bands of roving Bedouins. The pilgrims came 
loaded with offerings, and fell as a rich prey to robbers 
nt every turn of the road. The crusading knights in 
their iron coats could meet armies in the Held and take 
towns which could not run away; they could build 
castles and portion out the districts, and try to rule on 
the European system ; but Europe was not Asia, and 
they could as little brush away the Saracen banditti as 
they could brush away the mosquitoes. So it went on 



The Tem/plaTS • 227 

year after year, and Jerusalem was hardly more ( 
aible to pious devotees than it bad been before the con- 

At last, in the rery spirit ai '1 genius of the age, a 
Hmall company of young French nobles rolunteered their 
services as a pil< uard. It was a time when all great 

work was done by volunteers. There was already a hos- 
pital volunteer service hke our own modem Bed C 
The crusaders had Buffered miserably from wounds and 
sickness. A company of Hospitalers bad been estab- 
lished with its headquarters ■■<* Jerusalem, who grew 
afterward into the Knights of St. John. 

I. ' or th< same principle there was farmed a 
fighting company, who undertook to keep the road be- 
tween Acre and Jerusalem. The originators of it were 
two young French knights of noble birth, Hugh de 
Payena and Godfrey of St. Omer. They found 
others ready to join them, all like themselves of high 
rank, who had won their spurs in the battle-field. They 
called then oor brothers in Christ. They devoted 

it's service and his mother's. They 
look vows in the presence of the Patriarch, vows of the 
usual kind, to cut themselves off from all worldly inter- 
ests ; the vow of poverty, the vow of chastity, the r< 
absolute obedience to the Patriarch, and to the one 
among them whom they should choose as their head. 
Thus organized, they took the field as mounted police on 
the pilgrims' road. 

The palace of the Latin kings was on the site of Solo- 
mon's Temple. A wing of it was set apart as a pilgrims' 
home, and as the home and station of their guards. The 
knights had their suite of rooms, with appointments for 
their horses and servant;, and it was from this that they 
took their name as Brothers of the Order of the Temple. 



228 The Templars 

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre was their chapel. 
They had a Gothic hall with hmces iu rack, aud suits of 
armor hanging on the walls, and long swords and 
crossbows, and battle-axes — very strange objects in the 
Temple of Jerusalem, almost as strange as the imagin- 
ary Gothic castle in the mountains above Sparta, to 
which Faust and Mephistopheles transported Helen of 
Troy. 

It was here and thus that the Knight-Templars, who 
were so soon to fill so large a place in the world, began 
their existence — nine young gentlemen whose sole object 
in life was to escort pions souls to the scene of Christ's 
sufferings and resurrection. So much belief was able to 
do. Their life was spent in fighting. They had a 
battle-cry by which to know each other — Beauceant, as 
we know from "Ivanhoe ;" but what Beauceant meant, 
no one can tell with certainty. It was, I believe, a cry 
of the Burgundian peasantry — a sort of link with the old 
home. 

Every prince and baron had his armorial bearings. 
The Templars had theirs, though again we are astray for 
a meaning. It was two knights riding on one horse, and 
has been supposed to indicate their original poverty. 
Bat two knights on a single horse would have made but 
poor work with the light-armed and lightly mounted 
Bedouins ; and we know, besides, that each knight had 
two or three horses with servants to wait on him and 
them. Some think it meant brotherly love ; some that 
it was a badge of humility and simplicity. But this is 
guesswork ; the Templars were not clerks, and have 
left no explanatory records behind them ; when they 
perished, they perished entirely, and scarcely any docu- 
ments of their own survive to gratify our curiosity. 
Anyway, it is clear that, though individually vowed to 



The Templars 229 

poverty, they were supplied either by the King or out 
of their own combined resources with everything that 
was necessary to make their work effective. The only 
fault among them was that they were too few for the 
business which they had undertaken. 

But enthusiasm was contagious in those days. These 
Brothers of the Temple made a noise in Europe ; the 
world talked about them. Popes and bishops sang their 
praises. Other earnest youths were eager to join. The 
Order was like a seed thrown into a soil exactly prepared 
for it. So far there were but nine knights held together 
by their own wills and their own vows. It was desirable 
to give them more cohesion and an enduring form. One 
of the nine was a kinsman of St. Bernard of Clairvaux. 
At the end of nine years, in 1127, there was to be a great 
Church Council held at Troyes. Baldwin, King of Jeru- 
salem, sent two of the brethren to Europe to see St. 
Bernard, to see if possible Pope Honorius, to give an 
account to the Council of themselves and their doings, 
and to learn if it would be possible to enlarge their num- 
bers. Evidently King Baldwin thought that if he was to 
hold Palestine he must have a military force of some 
kind for constant service. The Crusades were single 
efforts, exhausting and expensive. The Christian nobles 
came at their own cost ; they fought gallantly, but if 
they were not killed they went home after their first 
campaign. The Holy Land could not be held thus. An 
organized army, with paid troops, and regimental chests, 
and a commissai'iat, was out of harmony with the time. 
If the enthusiasm of Europe was to take a constant 
form, it could take effect best in a religious military 
order, to be sustained in perpetuity as a permanent 
garrison. 

St. Bernard received his visitors with open arms. He 



230 The Templars 

carried thorn to the Pope. The Pope gave them his bless- 
ing, and sent them on to the Council. The Council gave 
them a Charier, as we may call it, and formed them into 
an Order of regulars ; and at once, from all parts of 
Europe, hundreds of gallant young men came forward 
to enter the ranks. The Pope had promised heaven to all 
who would take the cross against the infidels. Service 
in person could be commuted in favor of anyone who 
would give lands to support the Knights of the Holy 
Brotherhood. The kings took up the cause. Hugh 
de Payens came hack in person ; he was received in 
Paris ; he was received in London by our first Henry. 
Rich manors were settled on the Order in France, in 
England, in Spain, and in Germany. Priories were 
founded on each estate, to bo as depots to a regi- 
ment, where novices could be received and learn their 
duties, and from which they could be passed on to 
the Holy Land as their services were required. The 
huge torrent of crusading enthusiasm was, as it were, 
confined between banks and made to run in an even 
channel. 

A regular Order required a rule, and St. Bernard drew 
up a rule for the Knights of the Temple. There was 
now, he said, to be a war, the like of which had never been 
seen before ; a double war against the whole powers of 
the devil in the field of battle and in the heart of man. 
The rule of the Templars had, of course, to be some- 
thing different from the rules of the Benedictines and 
Cistercians. They were not humble men of peace, 
meek recluses whose time was divided between cloister 
and garden, whose chief ilutv was io sing masses for 
the souls of erring mankind. They were soldiers to 
whom peace was never known, who were to be forever 
in tbe field on desperate and dangerous errands. They 



The Templars 231 

were men of fiery temper, hot of blood, and hard of 
hand, whose sinew had to be maintained in as much ef- 
ficiency as their spirits. They were all nobly born, too ; 
younger sons of dukes, and counts, and barons. Very 
curious to look at, for we can see in them what noble 
blood meant at the time when the aristocracy rose to the 
command of Europe. 

If you please, therefore, we will look at this rule of 
theirs. It has not come down to us precisely as St. 
Bernard drew it up. It received additions and altera- 
tions as the Order enlarged. In essentials, however, tho 
regulations remained unchanged as they had been at the 
beginning. St. Bernard was a Cistercian. He followed 
as far as he could his own pattern. The Templars were 
to be purely self-governed. The head was called the 
Grand Master. They chose him themselves, and he was 
to reside always at the post of danger, in Palestine. 
Under him were Preceptors — four or five in each of the 
great nations of Europe. Under them were Priors, the 
superiors of the different convents of the Order. All 
these officers were knights, and all laymen. The knights, 
as I said, took the three monastic vows. They abjured 
all personal property ; they swore to remain pure ; they 
swore to obey the orders of their superiors without 
question, without hesitation, as if it came from God. 
We need not think this servile. Even in our own days 
of liberty such obedience is no more than is required of 
every officer and private in a modern army. Except in 
battle, their dress was a white cloak, on which a red 
cross was afterward embroidered ; white signifying chas- 
tity. Unless a knight remained chaste he could not see 
God. He had no lady-love in whose honor he could 
break a lance in the tournament, he had not even an im- 
aginary Dulcinea, like Don Quixote, or a Gloriana, like 



232 The Templars 

the Paladins of King- Arthur's court. The only woman 
to whom a Templar might devote himself was the Queen 
of Heaven. They were allowed no ornaments ; hair and 
dress were to be kept plain and simple. Abundant food 
was provided for them, meat and wine and bread and 
vegetables. And there is a very curious provision that 
they were to eat in pairs, each pair at a single board, 
that one knight might keep watch over the other, and 
see that he ate his dinner properly, and did not fast. 
To fast it seems was a temptation, to eat and drink a 
penance. 

Besides the general servants of the house, each knight 
had a special attendant of his own. The knight was 
forbidden to speak sharply to him, and was specially 
forbidden to strike him. 

Religious duties were strictly prescribed, but were 
modified by good sense. The knights, as a rule, were 
to attend the regular chapel services; but if they had 
been out on duty at night they were let off matins, and 
might say their prayers in bed. If they had done any- 
thing wrong or foolish they were to confess to the 
Grand Master or head of the house ; if it was a breach 
of discipline the head of the house set them a penance ; 
if it was a sin they were sent to a priest, who at first was 
a secular outside the order. They had little leisure ; 
their chief occupation was war. When not in the Held 
they had their arms and horses to look after, which they 
were allowed to buy for themselves, charging the ac- 
count to the house. 

Except by leave of the superior, they were to hold no 
correspondence with anyone in the outer world, not 
even with mothers, sisters, or brothers. No brother of 
the Order might walk about alone, or, when in a town, 
go into the streets, unless with leave asked and given. 



The Templars 233 

Fighting men had hot blood, and hot blood required to 
be restrained. Even an angry word spoken by one to 
another was instantly punished, and so was all light 
talk, especially when it turned on the other sex. If a 
brother of the Temple wanted to converse it must be on 
serious or, at least, rational subjects. The most inno- 
cent amusements were considered trifling, and were not 
to be encouraged. A Templar was not to hunt, or 
hawk, or shoot, still less to play idle games. One ex- 
ception only was made ; it is a very noticeable one, and 
had not escaped Sir Walter. In Syria and Palestine 
there were still wild beasts, as there had been in David's 
time. St. Bernard could not permit his Templars to 
hunt deer or net partridges ; he did, however, by special 
statute, allow them to hunt lions. And, mind, those 
were not days of repeating rifles and explosive bullets : 
it was man and lion face to face, with spear and knife 
against teeth and claws. The lion no doubt in St. Ber- 
nard's mind was a type of the adversary ; to hunt the 
lion was to hunt Satan. None the less, just as he had 
taken care that they should eat and drink enough, and 
not emaciate themselves like intending saints, so he 
would have them men at all points, and give them sport, 
too, so long as it was dangerous, and needed courage. 

We have travelled far since those days. The taste for 
sport still survives among us, and along with it at bot- 
tom there is, I dare say, in our young aristocrats, as firm 
a temper and as high a spirit as in those young pupils 
of the Abbot of Clairvaux, were there any modern ab- 
bots who could give their lives a meaning and a purpose 
suited to our own times. I heard the other day of a 
very fine young fellow, who in the twelfth century might 
have been spearing lions and escorting pilgrims among 
the Templars, performing the extraordinary exploit of 



234 The TemjJars 

shooting fifty brace of grouse in twenty-five minutes on 
some moor in Yorkshire ; and the feat was considered 
so memorable that a granite column was erected on the 
spot to commemorate it. Some modern St. Bernard 
seems to me to be desperately needed. 

I will mention one more point in the rule of the 
Templars. It was customary in those clays when men 
of rank were taken in battle to hold them to ransom, 
the price of redemption being measured by their wealth. 
The Templars had no personal wealth ; and the wealth of 
the Order was to be spent in God's service, not in man's. 
If a Templar was taken by the Saracens no ransom was 
to be paid for him ; he was to be left to his fate. His 
fate invariably was to be offered the alternative of the 
Koran or the sword ; and there is scarcely a recorded 
instance in which a Templar saved his life by abandon- 
ing his faith. 

I have said enough about these rules to show what 
sort of people the Templars were at the time when they 
began their career as a regular Order. Their num- 
bers increased with extraordinary rapidity. A special 
branch was established in Aragon, where they could 
fight the Moors without leaving Europe. Hugh de 
Payens took three hundred knights back with him to 
Palestine, and if they wanted fighting he gave them 
enough of it, In every battle the Templars were in the 
front. Five years after nearly every one of the three 
hundred had been killed. Popes and bishops glorified 
them as martyrs, and the ranks filled faster than death 
could empty them. They were the passion and the ad- 
miration of the whole Christian world. 



The Templars 235 



n. 

As time went on, and the first enthusiasm passed 
away, the Templars became a political and spiritual 
force in the European system. The Grand Master took 
rank among the peers in the councils of princes, and 
in ordinary times he had the command of the mili- 
tary defence of Palestine. The kingdom of Jerusalem 
was never the stablest of monarchies ; but even the 
Saracens were sometimes exhausted. There were in- 
tervals of truce, intervals of peace ; negotiations and 
treaties had to pass between the Christian and the Mos- 
lem powers. The conduct of these negotiations fell to 
the Templars, and between them and the Saracens there 
grew up some kind of acquaintance. Having their home 
in the East they got to know the Eastern character. It 
was alleged afterward that in this way their faith be- 
came corrupted. Scott has taken this view in his char- 
acter of Sir Brian. Whether it was so or not I shall 
consider by and by. Nothing to their discredit can be 
concluded from the fact of the intercourse, because it 
was inevitable. Nor was any suspicion of the kind ever 
breathed till the eve of their fall. All that appears for 
certain is that, being soldiers, they became statesmen 
also, and the general experience is that soldiers make 
very good statesmen. Only this is to be observed, that 
they became more closely connected with the Popes, 
and the Popes with them. For the first thirty years 
they were subject to the Patriarchs of Jerusalem, while 
secular priests, under the patriarchs' authority, heard 
their confessions and said mass for them. As a reward 
for their services the Popes relieved them from the patri- 



23C /" lars 

archs' jurisdiction, and took them specially to them* 
selves. In their houses and on their domains in Europe 
they were exempted from all authority except tl 
Borne. No bishop anywhere was allowed to interfere 

with them. Instead of secular priests they were per- 
mitted to have speeial chaplains, ordained by bishops, 
but subject, after their introduction, to the rule of the 

Temple only. They were entirely isolated from all the 
other regulars. No brother of the Temple might leave 
it and become a Benedictine : and the more separate 
they became the ampler the privileges which the Topes 
seemed delighted to heap upon them. Many thousands: 
of them by this time were spread over France, and 
England, and Spain. Their lands were released from 
tithe; DO priest or bishop's officer could levy tax or 
rate on a Templar's,manor, while the Templars on their 
side might take the tithe which the priests looked on as 
their own. Xo prelate, no prince even, might put a 
Templar on his oath, or eall on him for any feudal ser- 
vice. Popular as they had been at the beginning, the 
extraordinary favor with which the Topes honored them 
began to be looked on with jealousy and resentment. 
And they had another privilege, peculiarly irritating to 
the bishops, and even to the Benedictines and Cister- 
cians, who thought that if conferred on one Order it 
should have been conferred on all. Those who are ac- 
quainted with the state of Europe in the twelfth and 
thirteenth centuries know generally what an interdict 
meant. When any country or province was under an 
interdict the churches were closed, the church services 
were suspended ; the young' could not get married, the 
sick could not be absolved, the dead could not be buried 
in consecrated ground, but lay in ditches like dogs ; 
human life stood suspended as if under a horrible eurse. 



The Templars 237 

You may think so frightful a sentence was only issued on 
extraordinary occasions. On the contrary, it was the 
bishops' universal weapon, the instrument of their power, 
the unfailing fountain of their revenue, for an interdict 
once issued was not easily raised till every person in the 
province had bled for it. When bishops and nobles 
quarrel led, when archbishops cpiarrelled with bishops, 
or quarrelled with their flocks, they launched their inter- 
dicts like thunderbolts, striking whole districts without 
discrimination. To the astonishment and rage of these 
great persons the manors of the Templars were made a 
land of Goshen, which the plague could not touch. Nor 
was this all. Wherever any Templar went on business 
of the order the interdict was suspended, the church- 
bells rang out, the sacraments were dispensed to the 
flocks, the bodies of the dead could be laid peacefully in 
hallowed graves. It was even believed, so bitter was the 
animosity, that individuals who were excommunicated 
were allowed to confess and receive absolution in the 
Templars' chapels. 

Thus protected, thus curtained round with exemp- 
tions and securities, it is not tc be wondered at that if 
the rival clergy looked askance at the Templars, they 
came to think considerably of themselves. They were 
dangerous from their military strength ; they owed 
allegiance to no earthly power, secular or spiritual, ex- 
cept the Pope's. To the Popes they owed their posi- 
tion, and in those long conflicts between the See of 
Pome and the kings and emperors, they repaid the 
Papacy by standing by it in all its quarrels. Princes 
feared them, bishops hated them for their independence, 
the clergy envied their liberties. They cared little ; they 
were rich, they were strong ; their persons were sacred. 
Being regarded so doubtfully, it is very remarkable that 



838 The Templars 

for the two centuries during which they were in their 
vigor, and down to the moment of their fall, you rarely 

hud anywhere in the contemporary monastic writers any 
moral scandals reported of them. Giraldus Camp 
and others are never weary of drawing pictures of the 
gluttony and sensuality in the monasteries. Abbots 
and priors, if you can believe what is told by chroni- 
clers and satirists, were wrapped often in the seven dead- 
ly sins, and bishops were not much better. But there 
is a curious silence about the Templars. They are 
credited invariably with desperate courage in the held. 
They are hardly ever, that I remember, accused of being 
false to their vows, and, undoubtedly, if there had been 
notorious ground for scandal we should have heard 
enough of it. For we do hear complaints of them of 
another kind, complaints of them as laymen encroaching 
on churchmen's functions, and of their overbearing ways. 
Now and then they were rebuked, even by the Popes, for 
overstraining their privileges. Very generally, indeed, 
von find remarks upon their haughty bearing. They 
had the double loftiness in them of churchmen and 
warriors, loftiness too great when single, when double 
past endurance. You see it in all their actions, you see 
it in the lines of those recumbent figures in the Temple 
Church, lines fashioned by the habitual tone of their 
thoughts, and perpetuated in stone by the artist who 
had seen and known them. 

King Richard (ourCo&ur de Lion 1 * being sick once was 
attended by a French priest. The father spoke to him 
especially of three questionable daughters that he ha 1. 
called Avarice. Sensuality, and Pride. Richard said, " I 
have disposed of those three you speak of. I have given 
my avarice to the Cistercians; 1 have given my sensu- 
ality " It is a well-known story, but the authors differ 



The Templars 839 

on the recipient of this quality. Some say to the Black 
Friars, some fco the bishops, some io the clergy. I fear 

the variety implies that it titted with each of them ; but 
all agree on the last, that he gave his pride to the Tem- 
plars. 

Proud they were, but with the pride of soldiers. 
Always on the testimony of their worst enemies, where- 
ever there was fighting to be done with the infidel the 
Templars were in the thickest of it. No man ever knew 
a Templar a coward. Again and again in Palestine, 
when their ranks were thin and the Saracens hemmed 
them round in thousands, the Templars stood till the 
last man of them fell on the field, or fell afterward for 
his faith if carried off a wounded prisoner. Such fight- 
ing was rarely or never seen among the bravest men that 
ever lived. 

In 1 187, when Saladin destroyed the Christian army 
near the Lake of Geunesareth, and when the wood of the 
true cross which they had with them fell into Saladin 's 
hands, the Grand Master of the day and a number of 
knights were taken prisoners. Saladin admired their 
daring. He would have made them princes of his own 
empire if they would have changed their creed ; they all 
refused, and were all slain. 

Yet the kings did not like them : they were always too 
true to the Popes. The Templars were a thorn in the 
side of Cceur de Lion. They were a thorn in the side of 
the great Frederick the Second of Germany. I need not 
go through the details of their history. The kingdom 
of Jerusalem lasted but eighty-seven years ; Saladin then 
took the Holy City, and the Templars built themselves a 
great feudal castle near Acre, where they continued to 
protect the pilgrims. Pilgrims' Castle was the name of 
it — a palatial fortress like old Windsor, vast, stern, and 



240 The Templars 

splendid. Here henceforth were the heat! quarters of the 
order. Here the Grand Master held his chapters and 
ruled as a sovereign ; hither came the fresh draughts of 
knights from the European preceptories. Rich as they 
were, the austere severity of their habits never scorns to 
have been relaxed. Their wealth was all expended upon 
the wars ; they were powerful, but they stood apart from 
all other men, loved by few and feared by all. They had 
no personal ties ; they had no national ties : their 
nation was the Catholic Church ; their chief was tho 
Holy Father, and his enemies were theirs. They were 
in France, in England, in Scotland, in Spain, but they 
were not French, or English, or Scots, or Spaniards. 
They rarely mixed in any national struggles, and only 
when the Pope's interests were concerned — as, for in- 
stance, when they supported the legate, Pandulf, against 
King John. From the nature of the case, therefore, 
they could take no root in the national life anywhere. 
They were maintained only by the surviving enthusiasm 
for the Crusades, and the unquestioned constancy with 
which they upheld the Cross against the Crescent. Yet 
even in Palestine they were watched with jealousy. 
They knew the country. From long experience they 
knew the Arab nature ; and they had become prudent. 
If left to themselves, they would have made peace with 
the Soldans ; they could have secured the neutralization 
of Jerusalem, and a peaceful access to it for the pil- 
grims. But when they advised anything of this kind 
they were accused of treacherous correspondence with 
the enemy, and had to wipe the charge out by fresh acts 
of desperate gallantry. They would have saved the army 
of St. Louis in Egypt in the last fatal Crusade, but their 
advice was not taken. They were suspected of bad 
faith. Sir William of Sonnac, the Great Master, when he 



The Templars 241 

could not be listened to in the council of war (one of 
his eyes had been dashed out in battle the day before, 
and the socket was still bleeding), cried out: "Beauce- 
ant to the front ! The army is lost. Beauceant and 
death ! " He and all his comrades fell sword in hand. 

Surely those Templars were an extraordinary form of 
human beings. Loved they could not be ; they were 
anomalous, suited only to an anomalous state of things, 
yet some way admirable too ; for, whatever else they 
were, they could never have entered such an institution 
for their own pleasure. Dangers were gathering about 
them toward the end of the thirteenth century. Their 
lands were sometimes plundered, and the law was 
slow to help them. Bishops, in spite of Rome and its 
orders, now and then excommunicated individual Tem- 
plars, and a Pope had to issue another angry bull to pro- 
tect them. Kings began to think that they were too 
rich and to covet some of their treasures. Our Henry 
the Third told the Grand Preceptor of England that 
they had been indulged too much, and that he must 
have money out of them. The Templars answered cohlly 
that the King spoke as oue that was not wise, and that 
the attempt might cost him his throne. It was their 
own existence that was in peril, not the Crown's, if they 
had known the truth of their position. 

The meaning of them was as a garrison for Palestine. 
Their strength was the service which they were rendering 
in the cause of the Crusades ; and the Crusades and all 
that they had accomplished were now coming to an end. 

The campaign of St. Louis in Egypt was the last seri- 
ous effort. After the defeat of St. Louis on the Nile, the 
Crusading spirit died away. The fortresses which the 
Christians held in the Holy Land fell one by one, and at 
last, after two hundred years of lighting, nothing was 
1G 



242 The Templars 

left of their conquests except the town of Acre find the 
country for a few miles round. The management of the 
defence rested on the Templars. The European princes 
had professed to maintain a garrison iu Acre independ- 
ent of them, but in 1289 the Templars had to report 
that the garrison were a mere company of vagabonds, ill 
fed and unpaid, and a universal nuisance. There had 
been a peace of several years with the Saracens, but the 
Acre soldiers plundered the country indiscriminately. 
The Saracens could get no redress. They declared 
war again, and this time they meant to rally all their 
strength and drive the Christians finally out. They 
came down on Acre with 150,000 men. The Grand 
Master took the command of the miserable troops there, 
but against such a force he could do nothing. Pilgrims' 
Castle was evacuated and destroyed ; Acre was taken by 
storm ; out of his own five hundred Templars only ten 
escaped ; the garrison was destroyed, and the Holy Land 
from one end to the other was once more iu the hands 
of the successors of Mahomet. The ten surviving Tem- 
plars, with a few of the Hospitalers, escaped to Cyprus, 
which our Richard had taken one hundred years before. 
They chose a new Grand Master, Jacques de Molay, who 
was to prove their last. They refilled their ranks ; they 
had saved their treasury, and they renewed the war in 
Syria. But it was the feeble flicker of a dying flame. 
The mission of the Templars in the East was over. They 
held their vast estates for a purpose which was no lon- 
ger a reality, and it became a question what was to be 
done with them. 

In Europe they were still strong and formidable, and 
to one of the great parties into which Europe was divided 
they could still be extremely serviceable. The Popes and 
the great powers of Europe had not yet settled their 



The Templars 243 

long differences. Tho successor of St. Peter still pre- 
tended to wield both the swords of the Apostle. Boniface 
the Eighth was as firm a champion of the pretensions 
of the Roman See to universal sovereignty as the boldest 
of his predecessors. As tho military orders were no 
longer required in Palestine, Boniface perhaps conceived 
that they could be employed no better than as soldiers 
Of the Church at home. He proposed, as Innocent tho 
Third had proposed before, to unite the three military 
orders — Templars, Hospitalers, and the Teutonic Knights 
— into a single body. Could he succeed, he might then 
keep them in his own hand, to bring princes to order, 
who, like Frederick the Second of Germany, were not 
afraid of excommunication. 

It was a daring scheme, and worthy of the head which 
designed it. If carried out, it might have changed the 
face of Europe. The smaller orders must have been 
absorbed in the stronger, and the new organization 
would have been simply the Templars enlarged. The 
Holy See could count with certainty on their allegiance. 
Like the Jesuits, they had renounced all natural ties ; 
they had no nation but the Church, and, like the Jesuits 
also, they had been trained in habits of unquestioning 
obedience. Their exceptional privileges were a retaining 
fee. They could keep these privileges only by the Pope's 
favor and in virtue of the fear which the Pope still in- 
spired in the bishops and clergy of the National Churches. 
No temptation could be offered which could induce them 
to waver in their dependence, and it is quite possible 
that if the Popes could have secured to themselves the 
service of so strong an arm the theocratic despotism 
of the Gregories aud the Innocents might have been 
fixed for some centuries longer on the kingdoms of 
Western Christendom. 



244 The Templars 

"Whether such a despotism would have been good for 
mankind is another question. If the Popes were infal- 
libly wise, or infallibly good, or it they were wiser and 
better than the civil authorities ; if, under their rule, 
with the Templars to help them, the poor man would 
have found more justice and the wrongdoer have been 
made to smart more surely for his sins, I, for one, am 
not so much in love with liberty but that I could have 
wished the Popes better success than they found. Wo 
ought to welcome, all of us, the rule and authority of 
those who have more knowledge of what is right and 
good than ourselves. 

// it was so ; but the " if " is the difficulty. We can- 
not be sure of this supreme excellence of the Popes — at 
least some of us cannot. The intellectual revolt was 
only beginning, but wherever Albigenses or other spec- 
ulative people were thinking for themselves, the Popes 
had betaken themselves already to sword and fagot. 
A- to morals, princes might be wilful and ambitious, 
and barons harsh, and law courts venal ; but prelates, 
too. could be overbearing, and the Church courts were 
no purer than the civil courts. Every mediaeval chron- 
icler, every monastic annalist is forever declaiming at 
the avarice and rapacity of Pome. 

If the Popes had reason for wishing to keep the mili- 
tary orders for their Janissaries, the French and Eng- 
lish kings and the German Emperor might reasonably 
enough regard such an arrangement with alarm. 

I have the greatest admiration for the poor brothers 
of the Temple. The fate which overtook them was as 
undeserved as it was cruel. But Nature, or Providence, 
or the tendencies of things, do as a fact sweep away 
obstacles which stand in the way of human development . 
Institutions may long survive their usefulness : but they 



The Templars 245 

are taken a\v;\v when they become actively mischievous. 
One could only wish that the process of taking them 
away was not so often tainted with a violent injustice 
which binds us to the necessity of their removal. 

Their proper work was gone. If work was to be 
found for them in the future it was to be as the armed 
hand of the Papacy. But the Hildebrand theory of 
things was near its close also. The struggle between 
the Popes and the temporal princes was to end in a 
compromise. The Popes were to have the shadow, or 
the spiritual supremacy ; the civil powers were to have 
the substance, and thus for such a body as the Templars 
there was no place left. The kings in Europe intended 
to be sovereign, each in his own dominions. The Tem- 
plars were, or might be, in the way. They had vast rev- 
enues, which, now that the war in the East was ovei', 
they would be free to use for other aims and ambitions. 
The national bishops and clergy resented their arrogance, 
and were jealous of their immunities. In some way or 
other the kings would find it necessary to suppress 
them. But it was no easy task. They were brave, they 
were noble. As soldiers they were the best organized 
in Europe. They were careless of death, and as long as 
they had the Popes at their back it was quite certain 
that they would not fall without a struggle, while the 
Popes could not in honor consent to the abolition of an 
order whose only crime was too great fidelity to the 
Holy See. It was accomplished by making the Tem- 
plars the victims of an extraordinary accusation, which 
was intended to render them odious to mankind, and 
the story is one of the most curious in mediaeval his- 
tory. 

As a rule I think it unwise to attempt to go behind 
the legal verdicts of distant ages. As a rule, those who 



246 The Templars 

have been convicted of great crimes were probably guilty 
of them. Men have different ways of arriving at truth, 
but it is generally truth which they aim at, and so many 
eiivumstances are known to contemporaries of which 
posterity is absolutely ignorant, that it argues some pre- 
sumption in posterity when it reviews confidently contem- 
porary judgments. But the process of the Templars was 
peculiar. It was considered violent even in a violent age. 
The details are preserved almost to the smallest par- 
ticulars, and are worth examining) if only as a picture 
of the manners of the time. 

The French king at that timo was Philip le Bel— 
Philip the Beautiful — one of the most remarkable sover- 
eigns that France ever had. His daughter we know of 
as Edward the Second's queen — She Wolf, as the poet 
Gray calls her. The parent wolf was born in 12G8. He 
became king at sixteen. He fell early into wars with 
England and Burgundy, extended his frontiers, drilled 
into subjection his own vassals. He then quarrelled, on 
the old grounds of the Papal pretensions, with Pope 
Boniface the Eighth. He had required a subsidy from 
his clergy. The Pope forbade them to pay. Philip 
answered with calling the Pope a fool, changing your 
"Holiness" into your "fatuity." Boniface excom- 
municated Philip. Philip burnt the hull as boldly as 
Luther burnt Pope Leo's. He denounced Boniface as a 
heretic, made war upon him. and took him prisoner. 
The poor Pope died three days after, it was said of rage 
and mortification. Philip had been swift ; Napoleon 
was not quicker in his movements. The Templars had 
supplied Boniface with money. They had not time to 
help him with arms. Boniface's successor, Benedict the 
Tenth, made peace on Philip's own terms. The French 
clergy were made to give him all that he wanted. The 



The Templars 247 

Templars appealed to their privileges ; but tliey, too, 
Lad to submit under protest. The Kiug was master of 
the situation, and meant to make the most of his vic- 
tory. Benedict the Tenth reigned only for a year. The 
majority in the College of Cardinals was French. They 
chose after him the French Archbishop of Bordeaux, 
who was to reside in France, and could be made to do 
the King's bidding. Archbishop Bertrand became Pope 
at the beginning of 1305, under the name of Clement 
the Fifth. 

So much for the position, which I have merely sketched 
in outline. 

Tho Templars had no suspicion of their danger, and 
that no hint of it reached them is a proof how few friends 
they could have had. In outward respect they stood 
high as ever. No scandal had been breathed against 
them. Their churches were the admiration of Europe. 
Faithful as they were to their salt, they had never so 
much as dreamed that the master whom they had served 
so loyally could betray them. What could they have to 
fear? And yet it got abroad somehow that the King 
would be well pleased if evidence could be found of the 
Templars' misconduct, and when evidence is wanted, 
especially if it will be well paid for, sooner or later it 
will be forthcoming. 

In the Temple, as in other bodies, there were black 
sheep. Knights or servants of the order now and then 
broke the rules, and had to be punished, and, if incor- 
rigible, to be expelled. At the accession of Clement 
the Fifth there were two knights thus degraded, in 
prison, at Toulouse ; one of them, Esquin von Florian, 
who had been prior of Montfaucon, and the other with 
the unusual name of Noffodei. These men, after their 
expulsion, had been engaged in some conspiracy at Pa- 



248 The Templars 

ris, and were under sentence of death. They informed 
the governor of the jail that they could possess the 
Xing of a secret which would be worth another realm 
to him, and that if their lives were spared they would 
reveal it. They were sent up to the court ; Philip ex- 
amined them himself, and they made the following- 
singular statement : 

1. Every Templar on his admission to the order swore 
to defend it for his life long, in all causes, just or unjust, 
without exception. 

2. The chiefs of the order corresponded with the Sa- 
racens, and were more like Mahometans than Chris- 
tians. The Novices were required to spit upon the 
cross, and trample on it, and deny Christ. 

3. Anyone suspected of intending to betray the se- 
crets of the order was murdered and secretly buried. 

4. The Templars despised the sacraments. They 
worshipped idols and were heretics. 

5. They committed unnatural crimes. Their houses 
were nests of vice and profligacy. 

6. They betrayed the Holy Land, and lived without 
fear of God. 

These were the chief articles of a long list. There 
were many others ; such as incest, worship of the devil 
under various forms, etc. 

It is certainly strange that if the Templars were so 
horribly depraved no whisper of their enormities should 
hitherto have gone abroad. It is strange that, as the 
secrets of the order were necessarily known to all its 
members, they should have ventured to expel misde- 
meanants who could so easily betray them. If they 
killed everyone that they suspected of letting out their 
mysteries, it is strange that they should have allowed 
the knights to confess to secular priests outside the 



The Templars 249 

order, as it is certain that in the absence of their own 
chaplains they habitually did. 

The King took down the depositions, and, without 
going into the particulars of them, wrote privately to 
the Pope. On August 2i, 1305 — the dates are im- 
portant — the Pope replied that it was a singular story. 
The King's letter was so positive, however, and the per- 
sons who had brought the letter to him were so positive, 
also, that he supposed the charges must be true. It 
seemed, however, that some rumor of the matter had by 
this time reached the Templars themselves. The Pope 
added that the Grand Master and the preceptors had 
also written to him, alluding to the accusations, and 
begging him to examine into them. This he would do, 
and would inform the King of the result. 

The inquiry so conducted would have been fair 
enough, but for some reason it did not suit Philip's pur- 
pose. He sent the Pope the depositions themselves. 
The Pope made no further move. The whole matter 
was allowed to drop for a year ; and the next thing which 
we find is a confidential and affectionate letter from 
the Pope to the Grand Master, who was in Cyprus, writ- 
ten in the following summer. Not a word was said by 
him about the accusations. The Pope seemed to have 
forgotten them. He merely told the Grand Master 
that he wished to consult him about various subjects of 
great consequence — the condition of the East, the pros- 
pects of the Crusades, and the general state of Chris- 
tendom. He therefore begged De Molay to come to 
him in France as soon as he could, and to bring with 
him such of the knights as he had most dependence on. 

De Molay clearly had no suspicion. He was under 
the impression that the headquarters of the Templars 
were to be transferred from Cyprus to France. They 



350 The Templars 

had a grand palace in Paris. The site of it still boars 
the old name, and the palace itself was the prison of the 
royal family iu the Revolution Thither came IV Mo- 
lay, bringing - with him the chest, or chests of the order 
— twelve mules' load of gold and silver. The King re- 
ceived him with the proper courtesies There was no 
sign of displeasure. The treasure was put away in the 
Templars' vaults. The Pope was at Poitiers. DeMolay 
and the preceptors went to him, and had a long friendly 
conversation with him. The projected union of the mil- 
itary orders was certainly the subject of part of it. and 
IV Molay was less cordial on the subject than perhaps 
Clement wished. This was at the end of 1306, nearly 
two years after the two knights had told their story. 
All was outwardly smooth. The winter went by. In 
the spring there were once more rumors in the air which 
made IV Molay uneasy. Iu April, 1307, he went again 
to the Tope, taking the four French preceptors with 
him, and spoke very earnestly about it. Tin Pope lis- 
tened with apparent satisfaction, and dismissed them as 
if perfectly assured that the accusations were baseless. 

Again one asks. Was all this treachery? — was it a 
plan agreed upon between the Pope and the King to 
put the Templars off their guard, to seize the treasure, 
and get into their power the persons of the Grand Mas- 
ter and the leading knights? That certainly was the ef- 
fect. Such a plot, supposing it real, might be defended 
if the charges against the Templars were true. They 
were a formidable body. Had they been alarmed, and 
had their chief been at large, they could perhaps have 
set the King at defiance. At least they could not have 
been suppressed without desperate bloodshed. Put all 
turns on the truth of the charges, or on the King's sin- 
cere belief in them. 



The Templars 251 

Even kings and popes arc seldom deliberately and 
consciously wicked. But, like other men, they have a 
power of convincing themselves of what they wish to be- 
lieve. The Pope was afraid of Philip, and wished to 
please him. The Templars had really become an anom- 
aly. They were a danger to the State. Philip might 
legitimately wish to bring the order to an end. From 
a wish to end them to a conviction of their crimes the 
Btep would be short in a politic ruler's mind. Politics 
are a corrupting trade. 

Anyway, the Templars wero lulled into absolute se- 
curity. They were spread all over France in their vari- 
ous houses. At the beginning of October this same 
year, 1307, the King seut a secret instruction round the 
provinces for their universal and simultaneous arrest. 
Not a whisper was allowed to reach them. They had 
lived in friendless and haughty isolation. They had re- 
lied on the Pope, and the Pope had failed them. The 
only support which never fails — some legitimate place 
among the useful agencies of the time — this was wanting. 



in. 

At the break of day on October 13, 1307, the Tem- 
plars were surprised in their beds, carried off to the 
provincial prisons of the different bishops, and flung 
into dungeons. More willing jailers they could not 
have had. They had long defied the bishops, and the 
bishops' turn was come. They took on themselves 
the responsibility of the King's action. Such prelates 
as were in Paris, with the heads of the University 



252 The Templars 

and the abbots and priors of the religious houses, 
assembled two days after in the Templars' Hall. They 
drew up an Act of Accusation, in which the knights 
were described as ravening wolves, idolaters, perjur- 
ers, and guilty of the vilest crimes. They asserted, to 
meet the inevitable incredulity, that the Grand Mas- 
ter and the preceptors had confessed their guilt. The 
Templars belonged to Europe, not to France alone. 
Philip sent circulars to Edward the Second of England, 
to Germany, to the Kings of Aragon, Portugal, and 
Castile, telling his story, and inviting them to follow his 
example. His letter was read in England with astonish- 
ment. A great council was called at Westminster. 
El ward with his peers and prelates replied that the 
charges were incredible. The Templars were men of 
unstained honor. The Pope must examine into the 
matter. He would take no action till the Pope had de- 
cided. He sent his own protest to his brother princes. 
The Pope — the poor, infallible Pope — was in straits ; 
he had not been consulted before the arrest ; he could 
not refuse an inquiry ; yet, perhaps, he knew too well 
how an honest inquiry would terminate. The King and 
the bishops had begun the work, and they had no choice 
but to go through with it. Before the Pope could pro- 
ceed the bishops might prepare their case. It was win- 
ter. The Templars had been flung into cold, damp dun- 
geons, ill-fed and ill-clothed. In the first month they 
had begun to die of mere hardship. They were in- 
formed of the charges against them ; they were told 
that denial was useless, that the Grand Master and pre- 
ceptors had confessed, and wished them all to con- 
fess. They were promised rewards and liberty if they 
obeyed ; imprisonment and torture if they were obsti- 
nate. After some weeks of this, to bring them into a 



The Teinplars 253 

proper frame of mind, the bishops issued commissions 
to examine them. 

And I must now beg you to attend. What lam about 
to tell you is strict fact ; as well authenticated as any 
historical facts can be. Belief, or the credulity of noble- 
ness, had created the Templars. Belief, the ugly side 
of it, the credulity of hatred, was now to destroy them. 
Universal confession would alone satisfy the world's suspi- 
cions, and confession the King and his prelates were re- 
solved to have. "Wasted with hunger and cold, the knights 
were brought one by one before the bishops' judges. 
The depositions of the two approvers were formed into 
interrogatories. Did the knights, on their admission 
to the order, spit on the cross ? Did they deny Christ ? 
Did they receive a dispensation to commit unnatural of- 
fences ? Did they worship idols ? A paper was read to 
them professing to be the Grand Master's confession ; and 
to these questions they were required to answer yes or 
no. A few said yes, and were rewarded and dismissed. 
By far the greater number said that the charges were 
lies ; they said they did not believe that the Grand 
Master had confessed ; if he had, he had lied in his 
throat. And now what happened to the men who an- 
swered thus? They were stripped naked, their hands 
were tied behind their backs ; a rope was fastened to 
their wrists, the other end of which was slung over a 
beam, and they were dragged up and down till they 
were senseless, or till they acknowledged what the bish- 
ops wanted. If this failed, their feet were fixed in a 
frame like the old English stocks, rubbed with oil, and 
held to the fire till the toes, or even the feet themselves, 
dropped off. Or the iron boot was used, or the thumb- 
screws, or another unuamable and indescribably painful 
devilry. Thirty-six of them died under these tortures 



254 The Templars 

in Paris alone. The rest so treated said anything which 
the bishops required. They protested afterward that 
their confessions, as they were called, had been wrung 
out of them by pain only. They were returned to their 
dungeons, to be examined again when the Pope pleased. 
But having confessed to heresy, they were told that, if 
they withdrew their confessions afterward, they would 
be treated as relapsed heretics, and would be burnt at 
the stake. Such was then the Church's law ; and it was 
no idle threat. 

I am not telling you a romance. These scenes did 
actually occur all over France ; and it was by this means 
that the evidence was got together under which the 
Templars were condemned. But we are only at the first 
stage of the story. 

The confessions were published to the world, and the 
world, not knowing how they had been obtained, sup- 
posed that they must be true. The Pope knew better ; 
he remonstrated ; he said that the Templars were not 
subject to the bishops, who were going beyond their 
power. The King accused him of trying to shield the 
Templars' guilt ; the bishops, he said, were doing nothing 
but their duty, and the Faculty of Theology at Paris de- 
clared that no privilege could shelter heresy. The con- 
duct of the Grand Master and the four preceptors is a 
mystery. They were evidently bewildered, disheartened, 
shocked, and terrified, and confessions alleged to have 
been made by them were certainly taken down and 
published. It appears, also, that in January, 1308, three 
months after the arrest, they were brought before the 
Pope, and they were alleged to have confessed again on 
this occasion, and to have received absolution from him. 
But the Pope did not confirm this allegation, and was 
still incredulous. The other Powers of Christendom 



The Templars 255 

insisted on a fuller inquiry. The formal sanction of the 
Papacy was required before the order could be sup- 
pressed, and even Clement, pliable as he was, could not 
proceed on the evidence before him. In the summer, 
six months later, seventy-two Templars — seventy-two 
only of the thousands still surviving in France — were 
found willing to appear before him and give the required 
answers to the interrogatories. These seventy-two did 
say that they had abjured Christ, had spit on the cross, 
had worshipped idols, and the rest of it. They were 
asked why they had at first denied these things. They 
said that they had forgotten, but had since remembered. 
Seventy-two, after all that bribes and tortures and 
threats could do, were not enough. The Pope was an- 
swerable to Christendom. The French bishops them- 
selves were on their trial before the rest of the world ; 
the sentence could not rest on their word alone. The 
Pope found himself obliged to appoint an independent 
commission, when the knights could be heard in their 
own defence with an appearance of freedom. A cardinal 
or two, an archbishop, and two or three papal lawyers, 
were formed into a court which was to sit in Paris. All 
precautions were alleged to be taken that the Templars 
should have a fair hearing if they wished it, without fear 
or prejudice. Every prisoner who would say that he 
Avas ready to defend the order was to be brought to 
Paris to be heard. Notice of the appointment of the 
commission was sent round to all the courts of Europe. 

If Philip, if the bishops, really believed in the Tem- 
plars' guilt they ought to have welcomed the Pope's ac- 
tion. They had been cruel, but if they could prove 
their case their rough handling would not be judged 
severely. They were in no haste, however. The com- 
mission was appointed in August, 1308. It did not 



256 The Templars 

sit for another year. The Templars were now dying 
by hundreds. Their death-bed declarations were all 
protests of innocence. The survivors demanded in 
vain that these declarations should be made public. 
When they learned that they were to be heard before 
representatives of the Pope their hopes revived, and 
more than a thousand at once gave their names as ready 
to appear in the defence. 

In August, 1309, the court was opened. It sat in 
the Convent of St. Genevieve. Citations were issued, 
but no one appeared. The Templars had been brought 
up to Paris, but they had been told on the way that 
if they retracted their confessions the Pope intended 
to burn them as relapsed ; and, after the treatment 
which they had met with, anything seemed possible. 
They claimed to be heard by counsel. This was re- 
fused. The court adjourned till November 22, when 
some twenty of the knights were brought in and were 
ashed if they were ready with a defence. They said 
that they were illiterate soldiers ; they knew nothing 
of law pleading. If they might have their liberty with 
arras and horses they would meet their accusers in the 
field. That was all that they could do. 

It was necessary to begin with the Grand Master. 
On November 26, De Molay himself was introduced 
into the court. He was an old man, battered by a life 
of fighting, and worn by hard treatment in prison. 
Being asked what he had to say, he complained of the 
refusal of counsel. He claimed for himself and the 
order to be heard before a mixed court of lay peers 
and prelates. To such a judgment he said that they 
were willing to submit. They protested against a 
tribunal composed only of churchmen. 

Unfortunately for themselves the Templars were a 



The Templars 257 

religious order, and the Church alone could try them. 
The commission under which the court was constituted 
was read over. It was there stated that the Grand 
Master had made a full confession of the order's guilt ; 
and from his behavior it might have been thought that 
lie was hearing of this extraordinary assertion for the 
first time. We have the account of the proceedings 
exactly as they were taken down by the secretary. He 
crossed himself thrice. " Videbatnr se esse valde stupe- 
factum." He seemed entirely stupefied. When he 
found his voice he said that if the commissioners had 
not been priests he would have known how to answer 
them. They were cot there, they rejilied, to accept 
challenges. He said he was aware of that, but he 
wished to God that there was the same justice in 
France as there was among the Turks and Saracens, 
where a false witness was cut to pieces. No confession 
was produced to which he had attached his hand, and 
of other evidence there was none. The King's chancel- 
lor read a passage from a chronicle to the effect that 
Saladin, a hundred and twenty years before, had called 
the Templars a set of villains. Again De Molay ap- 
peared stupefied — as well he might. He claimed privi- 
lege, and demanded to be heard by the Pope in person. 
The Preceptor of Payens then appeared. He ad- 
mitted that he had confessed with many of his breth- 
ren, but he protested that their confessions were false. 
They had been handed over to a set of men, some of 
whom had been expelled from the order for infamous 
crimes. They had been tortured, and many of them 
had died on the rack. He for himself had had his 
hands crushed till the blood ran from his nails. He 
had been flung into a well and left tying there ; he had 
been for two years in a dungeon. He could have borne 
17 



258 The Templars 

to be killed— to be roasted, to be boiled — anything 
■which would be over in a moderate time, but such pro- 
longed agonies were beyond human strength. If he 
■was treated so again he would deny all that he was 
then saying, and renew his confession. He was re- 
mitted to custody, and the commissioners cautioned 
the jailer not to deal hardly with him for w T hat he had 
said. The caution w T as necessary. Many of the knights 
were still afraid to speak, or would say nothing except 
that they had been tortured, and would speak if they 
were set free. As long as they were kept prisoners 
they dared not. The commissioners, to encourage them, 
sent out a warning to the bishops, and again assured 
the knights of protection. The court, they said, wanted 
nothing but the truth. The knights might tell it freely ; 
no harm should happen to them. 

This gave them courage. Six hundred of them now 
came forward, one after the other, and told the secrets 
of their prisons, with the infernal cruelties which they 
had suffered there. A list was produced of those who 
had died. One very curious letter was read which had 
been written by a high official and sent to a party of 
Templars at Sens. It was to the effect that the Bishop of 
Orleans was coming to reconcile them. They were ad- 
vised to make submission, and in that case were prom- 
ised all kindness ; but they were to understand that the 
Pope had distinctly ordered that those who retracted 
their confessions should be burnt. The official in ques- 
tion was called in. He said that he did not think that 
he could have written such a letter ; the seal was his, 
but it might have been written by his clerk. 

One prisoner was carried into the court unable to 
stand. His feet had been held to the fire until they had 
been destroyed. 



The Tenvplars 259 

The evidence was still utterly inconsistent. Priests 
came forward, who said they had habitually heard Tem- 
plars' confessions, yet had heard nothing of the alleged 
enormities. Others, on the other hand, adhered to the 
story, telling many curious details — how Templars had 
told them that they had been required to spit on the 
cross, how they had been frightened and refused, but 
had at last consented — " non corde sed ore " — not with 
their hearts, but with their lips. But the great majority 
were still resolute in their denials. At last the whole 
six hundred made a common affirmation that every one 
of these Articles named in the Pope's bull was a lie — 
the religion of the Templars was pure and immaculate, 
and so had always been, and whoever said to the con- 
trary was an infidel and a heretic. This they were ready 
to maintain in all lawful ways, but they prayed to be re- 
leased and be heard, if not before a mixed tribunal, then 
before a general council. Those who had confessed 
had lied ; but they had lied under torture themselves, 
or terrified by the tortures which they witnessed. Some 
might have been bribed, which they said was public and 
notorious ; the wonder was that any should have dared 
to tell the truth. As a refinement of cruelty, the bish- 
ops had refused the sacraments to the dying. 

The commissioners were now at a loss. Individuals 
might be worked upon by fear and hope to repeat their 
confessions, but the great body of the order were con- 
sistent in their protest. The commissioners said that 
they could not hear them all. They had asked for 
counsel ; let them appoint proctors who could speak for 
them. This seemed fair ; but the unfortunate men 
were afraid of trusting themselves to proctors. Proctors 
being few, might be tempted or frightened into betray- 
ing them. They still trusted the Pope. They had been 



260 The Templars 

invited to speak, and they had been promised protection. 
The members of the court had some kind of conscience, 
and it began to seem likely that the case might not end 
as the King and the bishops required. They could not 
afford to let it go forth to the world that the Templars 
were innocent after all and had been brutally and bar- 
barously treated without sufficient cause ; public opinion 
did not go for much in those days, but they were at the 
bar of all Europe. 

We need not assume that they themselves did not 
believe in the Templars' guilt ; men have a wonder- 
ful power of making themselves believe what they wish 
to believe. If the Templars had been formidable before 
the attack on them was begun, they would be doubly 
formidable if they came out of their trial clean as their 
own white robes ; it was necessary to stop these pleas 
of innocence, and the French prelates were equal to the 
occasion. 

"While the Pope's commissioners were sitting at St. 
Genevieve the Archbishop of Sens opened a provincial 
court of his own in another part of Paris. The list of 
knights was brought before him who had given their 
names as intending to retract their confessions. On 
May 10, 1310, four of the Templars demanded audience 
of the Papal judges. They said that the knights had 
been invited by the Pope to defend the order ; they had 
been told to speak the truth without fear, and had been 
promised that no harm should happen to them. They 
now learned that in consequence of what they had said 
on the very nest day a great number were to be put on 
their trial before the Archbishop of Sens as relapsed he- 
retics. They said truly, that if this was permitted, it 
would make the inquiry a farce — it would stain irrepar- 
ably the honor of the Holy See. They entreated the 



The Templars 2G1 

commissioners to interpose and prevent the Archbishop 
from proceeding. 

The commissioners professed to be sorry — they could 
hardly do less ; but they said that the Archbishop was 
not under their jurisdiction. They themselves rep- 
resented the Holy See : the bishops had an independent 
authority ; they had no power over the bishops nor the 
bishops over them. They did promise, however, to 
think the matter over and see if anything could be 
done. 

The Archbishop did not allow them time for much 
thinking ; he was a sturdy prelate and had the courage 
of his office. Two days after, on the morning of the 
12th, just as the commissioners were going to chapel 
(they were particular about all these things it seems), 
word was brought them that fifty-four of the knights 
who had applied to be heard before them had been tried 
and sentenced and were to be burned at the stake that 
very afternoon. This time the commissioners were 
really disturbed. They were not prepared for such 
prompt action — their own dignity, the Holy Father's 
dignity, was compromised. They sent in haste to the 
Archbishop, to beg him at least to postpone the execu- 
tion ; every Templar who had died hitherto had declared 
the order innocent, and these would do the same. If 
witnesses were invited to speak, and were then burned 
for speaking, they would have to close their court. Al- 
ready the very report of the Archbishop's intentions 
had so terrified the knights that some of them had gone 
out of their minds. 

The Archbishop was made of tougher stuff — Fouquier 
Tiuville and the Revolutionary tribunal were not more 
resolute. To terrify the knights into silence was pre- 
cisely what he intended. Accordingly that same after- 



202 The Templars 

noon, as be bad ordered, tbose fifty-four "poor brotbers 
in Christ," wbose real fault bad been tbat tbey were too 
faithful to the Father of Christendom, were carried out 
to the Place St. Autoine, near where tbe Bastile stood, 
and were there roasted to death. Tbey bore their fate 
like men. Every one of them, torn and racked as they 
had been, declared with his last breath that, so far as 
be knew, tbe accusations against the order were ground- 
less and wilful slanders. Haifa dozen more were burned 
a day or two after to deepen the effect. The Archbishop 
clearly was not afraid of man or devil. Some say a 
sensitive conscience is a sign of a weak character. No 
one can accuse the Archbishop of Sens of having a 
weak character ; be knew what he was doing and what 
would come of it. 

I will read you a declaration made the next day before 
the Pope's commissioners by Sir Amaric de Villiers, one 
of tbe prisoners. He said tbat be was fifty years old and 
had been a brother of the order for twenty. The clerk 
of the court read over the list of crimes with which the 
order was charged. He turned pale ; he struck his 
breast ; he raised his band to tbe altar ; he dropped on 
his knees. On peril of his soul, he said, on peril of all 
the punishments denounced on perjury, praying that if 
be was not speaking truth the ground might open and 
he might go down quick into bell, those charges were all 
false. He allowed that he bad confessed on the rack. 
He had been taken to St. Antoine the evening before. 
He had seen his fifty-four brethren brought in carts and 
thrown into the flames. He had been in such fear that 
he doubted if he himself could endure to be so bandied. 
With such an end before him, he might say if he was 
brought again before tbe bishops, and they required it of 
him, that he had not only denied his Lord, but had 



The Templars 263 

murdered him. He implored the judges to keep to 
themselves what be was then saying. If the Archbishop 
got hold of it, he would be burned like the rest. 

The terror had cut deep. The Pope's commissioners 
had neither the courage to adopt the Archbishop's meth- 
ods nor to repudiate and disown them. They sent to 
him to say that they must suspend their sittings. He 
answered scornfully that they might do as they pleased. 
He and his suffragans had met to finish the process 
against the Templars, and they intended to do it. A 
few more victims were sacrificed. The rest of the 
knights, who had offered to speak before the commis- 
sioners, were naturally silent. The commissioners could 
not help them. They withdrew their defence, and the 
commission was adjourned till the following November. 

The tragic story was now winding up. When Novem- 
ber came the court sat again, reduced in number and 
reduced to a form. The duty of it thenceforward was 
simply to hear such of the order as had been broken into 
submission, and were willing to repeat the story which 
had been thrust into their mouths, with such details as 
imagination or reality could add to it. I do not suppose 
that the accusations were absolutely without foundation. 
Very often the witnesses seemed to be relating things 
which they really remembered. The Templars were a 
secret society, and secret societies have often forms of 
initiation which once had a meaning, with an affectation of 
solemnity and mysticism. I am not a Freemason. Many 
of you no doubt are. I have heard that the ceremonies of 
that order, though perfectly innocent, are of a kind which 
malice or ignorance might misinterpret, if there was an 
object in bringing the Freemasons into disrepute. You 
know best if that is so. Somewhere abroad I was myself 
once admitted into a mysterious brotherhood. I was 



2G4: The Templars 

sworn to secrecy, and therefore I can tell you little about 
it. I was led through a narrow passage into a vast dark- 
ened hall, where some hundred dim, half-seen figures 
were sitting in silence. I was taken to a table in the 
middle with a single candle on it. There — but my 
revelations must end. I could have believed myself 
before the famous Vehm Gericht. The practices alleged 
against the Templars as crimes were in fact most of 
them innocent. They were accused of worshipping a 
skull ; some said it had jewels in its eyes, some that it 
had none. An accidental question brought out that 
it was a relic of an Eastern saint, such as any Catholic 
might treat with reverence. The officers of the order 
were accused of hearing confessions and giving priestly 
absolution, and this was a deadly offence. By the rules 
of the order the lay superiors were directed to hear con- 
fessions and inflict penance, but were forbidden to ab- 
solve. Confusion might easily have arisen. 

The Novices were said to receive licenses to commit an 
abominable sin, yet there was scarcely a single knight 
who could be brought to say that he had even heard of 
such a sin being committed. 

The spitting on the cross and the denial of Christ are 
less easy to explain. Thousands of the knights abso- 
lutely denied that such outrages were ever seen or heard 
of, yet a great many did with considerable consistency 
describe a singular ceremony of that kind. It has been 
supposed that the Templars by their long residence in 
Syria had ceased to be Christians, and had adopted 
Eastern heresies, that they were Gnostics, Manichees, or 
I know not what. This is a guess, and I do not think a 
likely one. They were mere soldiers. They were never 
a learned order. They left no books behind them, or 
writings of any kind. The services in the Templars' 



The Templars 205 

churches were conducted with peculiar propriety. 
Every witness declared that the very crosses which they 
said had been spit upon were treated afterward with 
the deepest reverence. Nor was there really any at- 
tempt at concealment. Those who had been frightened 
at the forms of initiation were told to go and confess to 
secular priests in the neighborhood. Several instances 
of such confessions were produced. The confessors 
sometimes had treated what they heard as of no conse- 
quence. They had satisfied their penitents' consciences, 
not always in the same way. One said that the spit- 
ting on the cross was meant as a trial of constancy. 
The Saracens if they were taken prisoners would require 
them to deny Christ or be killed. The officers of the 
order wanted to see how they would abide the test. 
Another said it was a trial of obedience. The Novice 
swore to obey his superiors in all things without excep- 
tion. The spitting on the cross may have been the se- 
verest trial which could be imagined. In no instance 
at all was it ever suggested that the forms of initiation 
pointed to any real impiety. 

So strange a tale is not likely to have rested upon 
nothing. I suppose the custom may have varied in dif- 
ferent houses. Men are men, and may not have been 
uniformly wise. But the more one reads the evidence 
the plainer it becomes that the confessions, and even 
the terms of them, were arranged beforehand. The wit- 
nesses produced after the commission met again told 
one tale. If they ever varied from it they were brought 
swiftly back into harmony. Sir John de Pollencourt 
gave the stereotyped answer. He had spat on the cross. 
He had done this and that ; but we read in the Record : 
"The commissioners, seeing him pale and terrified, bade 
him for his soul's welfare speak the truth whatever it 



2G6 The Templars 

might be. He need not fear. They would tell no one 
what be might say. He hesitated ; then, on his oath, lie 
declared that he had spoken falsely. He had not denied 
Christ. He had not spat on the cross. He had not re- 
ceived license to sin. He had confessed before the 
bishops in fear of death ; and because his fellow-prison- 
ers said that they would be killed unless they admitted 
what the bishops required." 

The commissioners were not as secret as they prom- 
ised to be. Sir John de Pollencourt was made to know 
behind the scenes what would happen to him if he was 
not submissive. Accordingly, four days after, the same 
witness was brought in again, withdrew his denial and 
again confessed. It is easy to see what had happened 
in the interval. 

So handled, the rest of the process went on smoothly. 
Parties of knights who had escaped the torture-chambers 
of the bishops and thus had not been forced into con- 
fession continued to speak out. On one occasion twenty 
or thirty appeared in a body, and pointed to the red 
crosses broidered on their clothes. That cross, they 
said, signified that they would shed their blood for their 
Redeemer. If, as they were told, their Grand Master 
had confessed that they had denied Christ, or if any of 
their brethren had confessed it, they had lied in their 
throats, to the peril of their own souls. But the mass 
of the knights had by this time abandoned their cause 
as hopeless. By the end of nine months a sufficient 
number of so-called confessions had been repeated be- 
fore the commissioners to satisfy the Pope's scruples. 
The commissioners were themselves only too eager to 
wind up the scandalous inquiry. Not so much as an 
effort had been made to discover the real truth. The 
result was a foregone conclusion, and every utterance 



The Templars 2G7 

which could interfere with it had been stifled by cord or 
fire. The report was sent to Clement. A council of 
bishops was called together. It was laid before them 
and accepted as conclusive. The order of the Templars 
was pronounced to have disgraced itself and was sup- 
pressed. The sinning knights were scattered about the 
world — some went back to the world — some became 
Benedictines or Cistercians. Some gave their swords 
and services to secular princes, having had enough of 
the Church. Some disappeared into their families. 
Their estates the Pope had insisted must be reserved to 
the Church ; and were nominally given to the Knights 
Hospitalers. But the King extorted such an enormous 
fine from them that the Hospitalers gained little by 
their rivals' overthrow. 

The Grand Master's end remains to be told. The 
confessions which he and three of the head preceptors 
were alleged to have made are extant, and resemble the 
rest, but we have seen how he behaved when the con- 
fession attributed to himself was read over to him be 
fore the commissioners. He had appealed to the Pope, 
but without effect, and had been left with the three 
preceptors in prison. When the edict for the suppres- 
sion was issued, and the other knights were dismissed, 
De Molay anil his companions were sentenced to per- 
petual confinement. But the world was after all less 
satisfied of the Templars' guilt than Philip could have 
wished, and in some way or other it was necessary to 
convince the public that the Grand Master's confession 
was genuine. 

The bull of suppression was to be read aloud to the 
people of Paris. It was brought up with special solem- 
nity by a bishop and a cardinal, and De Molay and the 
others were to be publicly shown upon a stage on the 



2 OS The Templars 

occasion. On March IS, 1314, a platform had been 
erected in one of the squares, with chairs of state for 
the cardinal, the Archbishop of Sens, and other dis- 
tinguished persons. The Grand Master and his com- 
rades were produced and were placed where the world 
could see them. The cardinal rose to read the sentence. 
"When he came to the list of enormities of which, as the 
bull alleged, the Templars had been found guilty, and 
when the Grand Master heard it stated that he had him- 
self admitted the charges to be true, he rose up, and iu 
a loud voice which everyone could hear, he cried out 
that it was false. 

Philip himself was not present, but he was in Paris 
and not far oil". Word was brought him of the Grand 
Master's contumacy. Not troubling himself with forms 
of law he ordered that the Grand Master should be in- 
stantly burned, and his provincials along with him, unless 
they saved themselves by submission. Two of them, 
Sir Hugh von Peyraud and Geoffrey de Gonville, gave in 
and were sent back to their dungeons. De Molay and 
the third were carried directly to the island in the Seine, 
and were burned the same evening in the light of the 
setting sun. 

In his end, like Samson, De Molay pulled down the 
fabric of the prosecution. There was thenceforward a 
universal conviction that the Templars had been un- 
justly dealt with. The popular feeling shaped itself 
into a tradition (possibly it was a real fact), that as the 
flames were choking him, the last Grand Master sum- 
moned the Pope and the King to meet him before the 
tribunal of God. Clement died in agony a few weeks 
after. A little later Philip the Beautiful was flung by a 
vicious horse, and he too weut to his account. 

A very few words will tell now how the Templars 



The Templars 269 

fared in the rest of Europe. There was no real belief 
in their guilt; but their estates had been given to them 
for a purpose which 110 longer existed. They were rich, 
and they had nothing to do. They were an anachronism 
and a danger. When the Pope agreed to their sup- 
pression, there was no motive to resist the Pope's de- 
cision ; and they did not attempt to resist it themselves. 
Nothing is more remarkable in the whole story than the 
almost universal acquiescence of an armed and dis- 
ciplined body of men in the Pope's judgment. They 
had been trained to obedience. The Pope had been 
their sovereign. The Pope wished that they should 
cease to exist ; and they fell to pieces without a word, 
unless it were to protest their innocence of the crimes 
of which they were accused. 

In England Philip's charges had at first been received 
with resentful incredulity, but neither King, nor peers, 
nor Church had any motive to maintain the Templars 
after the Pope had spoken. For form's sake there was 
an investigation on the lines of the French interroga- 
tories, but there was no torture or cruelty. They knew 
that they were to go, and that they would be dealt with 
generously. The process was a curious one. As a body 
the English Templars stated that the forms of admission 
to the order were, as far as they knew, uniform. "What 
was done in one house was done in all. If any of the 
brethren liked to depose to this or that ceremony being 
observed they would not contradict them, and thus the 
difficulty was got over. A certain number of knights 
were ready to give the necessary evidence. Some hun- 
dreds of outside persons, chiefly monks or secular 
priests, deposed to popular rumors, conversations, and 
such like, names not given ; a certain person heard an- 
other person say this and that. What was got at in 



270 The Templars 

tliis way was often not dreadful. A preceptor in Lin- 
colnshire bad been beard to maintain tbat " men died 
as animals died ; " therefore, it might be inferred that 
be did not believe in immortality. Templars sometimes 
bad crosses worked into their drawers ; therefore they 
were in the habit of sitting upon the cross. The Eng- 
lish evidence threw light often on the manners of the 
age, but I cannot go into that. I have tried your 
patience too long already. I will, therefore, sum up 
briefly. 

When all is said the story is a strange one, and 
I cannot pretend to leave it clear of doubt. But no 
lawyer, no sensible man, can accept as conclusive evi- 
dence mere answers to interrogatories extorted by tor- 
ture and the threat of death. A single denial made 
under such circumstances is worth a thousand assents 
dragged out by rack and gibbet. If the order had 
really been as guilty as was pretended, some of the 
knights at least would have confessed on their death- 
beds. Not one such confession was ever produced, 
while the dying protestations of innocence were all sup- 
pressed. The King and the Inquisitors force us into 
incredulity by their own unscrupulous ferocity. It is 
likely enough that, like other orders, the Templars had 
ceremonies, perhaps not very wise, intended to impress 
the imagination, but that those ceremonies were inten- 
tionally un-Christian or diabolical, I conceive to be en- 
tirely unproved. They fell partly because they were 
rich, partly for political reasons, which, for all I know, 
may have been good and sound ; but the act of accusa- 
tion I regard as a libel invented to justify the arbitrary 
destruction of a body which, if not loved, was at least 
admired for its services to Christendom. 

It remains only to emphasize the moral that institu- 



The Templars 271 

tions can only be kept alive while they answer the end 
for which they were created. Nature will not tolerate 
them longer, and in one way or another shakes them 
down. The Templars had come into existence to fight 
the infidels in Palestine. Palestine was abandoned to 
the infidels, and the Templars were needed no longer. 
They were outwardly strong as ever, brave, organized, 
and in character unblemished, but the purpose of them 
being gone, they were swept away by a hurricane. So 
it is with all human organizations. They grow out of 
man's necessities, and are mortal as men are. Empires, 
monarchies, aristocracies, guilds, orders, societies, re- 
ligious creeds, rise in the same way, and in the same 
way disappear when they stand in the way of other 
things. 

But mankind are mean creatures. When they destroy 
these creations of theirs they paint them in the blackest 
colors to excuse their own violence. The black colors 
in which Philip the Beautiful and his bishops were 
pleased to paint the Templars will, perhaps, if history 
cares to trouble itself about the matter, be found to 
attach rather to the extraordinary men calling them- 
selves successors of the Apostles who racked and roast- 
ed them. 

You in Scotland found no great reason to love bish- 
ops, and the history of the Templars does not increase 
our affection for them. 



THE NORWAY FJORDS 

Ox June 30, 1881, we sailed from Southampton Water 
in the steam yacht Severn to spend ten weeks in the 
Norway Fjords — Fjords or Friths, for the word is the 
same. The Scandinavian children of the sea carried 

their favorite names with them. Frith is Fjord ; 
our Cumberland Scale Force would be called Scale 
Foss between the North Cape and the Baltic. The 
yacht was spacious : over three hundred tons. Cabins, 
equipments, engines, captain, steward, crew the best of 
their kind. Our party was small : only four in all. 
My friend, whose guest T was. and whom I shall call 

"D , two ladies, and myself. T> had furnished 

himself with such knowledge as was attainable in Lon- 
don for the scenes which we were to explore. He had 
studied Norse. He could speak it : he could understand 
and be understood. He was a sportsman, but a sports- 
man only as subsidiary to more rational occupations. 
He was going to Norway to catch salmonidse : not. how- 
ever, to catch them only, but to study the varieties of 
that most complicated order of fish. He was going also 
to geologize and to botanize, to examine rocks and 
river and glaciers and flowers ; while all of us were 
meaning to acquaint ourselves as far as we could with 
the human specimens still to be found in the crater of 
the old volcano from which those shiploads of murder- 
ing " Panes " poured out ten centuries ago to change 
the face of Europe. 



The Norway Fjords 273 

And to see Norway, the real Norway, within moderate 
oompass of time is possible only with such means as a 
Bteam yacht provides. There are great lines of road in 
Norway along the practicable routes, but very few are 
practicable ; nine-tenths of the country, and the most 
interesting parts, are so walled off by mountains, are so 
intrenched among the fjords, as to be forever unap- 
proachable by land, while the water highways lead 
everywhere — magnificent canals, fashioned by the ele- 
mental forces, who can say how or when? 

From the west coast there run inland with a general 
easterly direction ten or twelve main channels of sea, 
penetrating from fifty to a hundred miles into the very 
heart of the Northern Peninsula. They are of vast 
depth, and from half a mile to two miles broad. The 
mountains rise on both sides sheer from the water's 
edge ; the lower ranges densely timbered with pine and 
birch and alder. Above these belts of forest soar ranges 
of lofty peaks, five or six thousand feet up, the snow 
lying thick upon them in the midst of summer, glaciers 
oozing down the gorges, like cataracts arrested in their 
fall by the Frost Enchanter, motionless, yet with the 
form of motion. From the snow, from the ice when 
the glaciers reach a warmer level, melt streams which 
swell at noon, as the sun grows hot, descend in never- 
ending waterfalls, cascade upon cascade, through the 
ravines which they have cut for themselves in millions 
of years. In the evening they dwindle away, and at 
night fall silent as the frost resumes its power. 

From the great central fjords branches strike out 
right and left, some mere inlets ending after a few 
miles, some channels which connect one fjord with 
another. The surface of Norway, as it is shown flat 
upon a chart, is lined and intersected by these water- 
13 



274 The Norway Fjords 

•ways as the surface of England is by railways. The 
scenery, though forever changing, changes like the pat- 
tern of a kaleidoscope, the same materials readjusted in 
varying combinations ; the same great rivers of sea- 
water, the same mountain walls, the same ice and snow 
on the summits, the same never-ending pines and 
birches, with an emerald carpet between the stems 
where in summer the universal whortleberry hides the 
stones under the most brilliant green. The short fjords 
and the large are identical in general features, save that, 
lying at right angles to the prevailing winds, the surface 
of these lateral waters is usually undisturbed by a single 
ripple ; the clouds may be racing over the high ridges, 
but down below no breath can reach. Hence the light 
is undispersed. The eye, instead of meeting anywhere 
with white water, sees only rocks, woods, and cataracts 
reversed as in a looking glass. This extreme stillness 
and the optical results of it are the cause, I suppose, of 
the gloom of Norwegian landscape-painting. 

How these fjords were formed is, I believe, as yet un- 
determined. Water has furrowed the surface of the 
globe into many a singular shape ; water, we are told, 
cut out the long gorge below Niagara ; but water, acting 
as we now know it, scarcely scooped out of the hardest 
known rock these multitudinous fissures, so uniform in 
character, between walls which pierce the higher strata 
of the clouds, between cliffs which in some places 
rise, as in the Geiranger, perpendicular for a thousand 
feet ; the fjords themselves of such extraordinary depth, 
and deepest always when furthest from the sea. Where 
they enter the Atlantic, there is bottom generally in a 
hundred fathoms. In the Sogne, a hundred miles in- 
land, you find 700 fathoms. Rivers cutting their way 
though rock and soil could never have achieved such 



The Norway Fjords 275 

work as this. Ice is a mighty thaumaturgist, and ice 
has been busy enough in Norway. The fjords were once 
filled with ice up to a certain level ; the level to which 
it rose can be traced on the sharp angles ground off the 
rounded stone, and the scores of the glacier plane on 
the polished slabs of gneiss or granite. But at some 
hundreds of feet above the present water-line the ice 
action ends, and cliffs and crags are scarred and angular 
and weather-splintered to where they are lost in the eter- 
nal snow. The vast moraines which occasionally block 
the valleys tell the same story. The largest that I saw 
was between four and five hundred feet high, and we 
have to account for chasms which, if we add the depth 
of the water to the height of the mountains above it, are 
9,000 feet from the bottom to the mountain crest. 

The appearance of Norway is precisely what it would 
have been if the surface had cracked when cooling into a 
thousand fissures, longitudinal and diagonal, if these 
fissures had at one time been filled with sea-water, at 
another with ice, and the sides above the point to which 
the ice could rise had been chipped and torn and weather- 
worn by rain and frost through endless ages. Whether 
this is, in fact, the explanation of their form, philosojmers 
will in good time assure themselves ; meantime, this is 
what they are outwardly like, which, for present purposes 
is all that need be required. 

A country so organized can be traversed in no way so 
conveniently as by a steam yacht, which carries the four- 
and-twenty w T inds in its boiler. It is not the romance 
of yachting ; and the steamer, beside the graceful 
schooner with its snowy canvas, seems prosaic and me- 
chanical. The schooner does well in the open water with 
free air and sea room ; but let no schooner venture into 
the Norway fjords, where slant winds come not by which 



276 The Norway Fjords 

you can mate a course by a long reach, where there is 
either a glassy calm or a wind blowing up or down. If 
you reached the end of the Sogne you might spend a 
season in beating back to the sea, and, except in some few 
spots, where you might not be able to go, you cannot so 
much as anchor on account of the depth of water. Shut 
in among these mountains, you may drift becalmed in a 
sailing yacht for weeks together, while to a steamer the 
course is as easy and sure as to a carriage on a turnpike 
road. Your yacht is your house ; like a wishing carpet, 
it transports you wherever you please to go, and is here 
and there and anywhere. You note your position on 
the chart ; you scan it with the sense that the world of 
Norway is all before you to go where you like ; you choose 
your next anchoring-place ; you point it out to the pilot ; 
you know your speed — there is no night in the summer 
months — you dine ; you smoke your evening cigar ; you 
go to your berth ; you find yourself at breakfast in your 
new surroundings. 

So then, on that June evening, we steamed out of the 
Solent. Our speed in smooth water was ten knots ; our 
distance from Udsire Light, for which our course was 
laid, was 700 miles. It was calm and cloudless, but 
unusually cold. When night brought the stars we saw 
the comet high above us, the tail of him pointing straight 
away from the sun, as if the head was a lens through 
which the sun's rays lighted the atoms of ether behind 
it. Sleep, which had grown fitful in the London season, 
came back to us at once in our berths unscared by the 
grinding of the screw. We woke fresh and elastic when 
the decks were washed. The floors of the cabins lifted 
on hinges, and below were baths into which the sea- 
water poured till we could float in it. When we came 
up and looked about us we were running past the North 



The Norway Fjords 277 

Foreland. "With the wind aft and the water smooth we 
sped on. I lay all the morning on a sofa in the deck 
cabin, and smoked and read Xenophon's "Memorabilia." 
So one day passed, and then another. On the eveniug 
of July 2 we passed through a fleet of English trawlers, 
a few units of the ten thousand feeders of the London 
stomach, the four million human beings within the bills 
of mortality whom the world combines to nourish. We 
were doing two hundred miles a day. The calm contin- 
ued, and the ladies so far had suffered nothing. There 
was no motion save the never-resting heave of the 
ocean swell. Homer had observed that long undulation ; 
Ulysses felt it when coming back from Hades to Circe's 
island. The thing is the same, though the word "ocean " 
has changed its meaning. To Homer ocean was a river 
which ran past the grove of Proserpine. It was not till 
the ship had left the river mouth for the open sea that 
she lifted on the wave.* 

On the third afternoon the weather changed. The 
cold of the high latitude drove us into our winter clothes. 
The wiud rose from the northwest, bringing thick rain 
with it, and a heavy beam sea. The yacht rolled 20° 
each way. Long steamers, without sails to steady them, 
always do roll, but our speed was not altered. We 
passed Udsire Light on the 3d, at seven in the evening, 
and then groped our way slowly, for, though there was 
no longer any night, we could see little for fog and mist. 
At last we picked up a pilot, who brought us safely into 
the roadstead at Bergen, where we were to begin our 
acquaintance with Norway. Bergen stands fifteen miles 
inland, with three fjords leading to it, built on a long 

* Avrap €irel iroTixfioio \lirev f>6ov 'fi.Keavo?o 
Ntjvs, xirb 5' 'Uero Kv/j.a GaXdao-rjs evpviropoio. 

Odyssey, xii. 1, 2. 



27S The Norway Fjords 

tongue of rock between two inlets, and overhung with 
mountains. There is a great trade there, chiefly in salt 
fish, I believe — any way the forty thousand inhabitants 
seemed, from the stir on shore and in the harbor, to 
have plenty to occupy them. We landed and walked 
round. There are no handsome houses, but no beggars 
and no signs of poverty. "You have poor here," I said 
to a coal merchant, who had come on board for orders, 
and could speak English. "Poor!" he said; "yes, 
many ; not, of course, such poor as you have in England. 
Everyone has enough to eat." To our sensations it was 
extremely cold, cold as an English January. But cold 
and heat are relative terms ; and an English January 
might seem like summer after Arctic winters. The Ber- 
gen people took it to be summer, for we found a public 
garden where a band played ; and there were chairs and 
tables for coffee out of doors. Trees and shrubs were 
acclimatized. Lilacs, acacias, and horse-chestnuts were 
in flower. There were roses in bud, and the gardeners 
were planting out geraniums. We saw the fish-market ; 
everywhere a curious place, for you see there the fish 
that are caught, the fishermen who catch them, with 
their boats and gear, the market woman, and the citizens 
who come to buy. It is all fish in Bergen. The tele- 
grams on the wall in the Bourse tell you only how fish 
are going in Holland and Denmark. The talk is of fish. 
On the rocks outside the town stand huge ricks, looking 
like bean stacks, but they are of dried cod and ling. 
The streets and squares smell of fish. A steamer bound 
for Hull lay close to us in the roadstead, which to lee- 
ward might have been winded for a mile. Lads stagger 
about the streets cased between a pair of halibuts, like 
the Chelsea paupers between two advertisement boards 
inviting us to vote for Sir Charles Dilke at an election. 



The Norway Fjords 279 

Still, excepting the odors, we liked Bergen well. You 
never hear the mendicant whine there. Those northern 
people know how to work and take care of themselves, 
and loafers can find no living among them. I do not 
know whether there is so much as a beggar in the whole 
town. They are quiet, simple, industrious folk, who 
mind their own business. For politics they care little 
as yet, not supposing that on this road is any kind of 
salvation for them, though, perhaps, their time will come. 
They are Lutherans, universally Lutherans. It is the 
national religion, and they are entirely satisfied with it. 
Protestant dissent is never heard of. There is a Catholic 
church in Bergen for the foreign sailors, but I doubt if 
the priests have converted a single Norwegian. They 
are a people already moderately well to do in body and 
mind, and do not need anything which the priests could 
give them. The intellectual essentials are well looked 
after, the schools are good and well attended. The 
Bergen museum is a model on a small scale of what a 
local museum ought to be, an epitome of Norway itself 
past and present. Perhaps there is not another in Eu- 
rope so excellent of its kind. In the gallery of antiq- 
uities there is the Norway of the sea kings, Runic tab- 
lets and inscriptions, chain armor, swords and clubs 
and battle-axes, pots of earthenware, stone knives and 
hammers of a still earlier age. There are the traces of 
their marauding expeditions, Greek and Italian statu- 
ettes, rings, chains, bracelets, and drinking-cups, one or 
two of these last especially curious, for glass was rare 
and precious when they were made or mended. The 
glass of one has been broken, and has been pieced with 
silver. These obviously were the spoils of some cruise 
in the Mediterranean, and there is old church plate 
among them which also tells its story. By the side of 



280 Norway Fjords 

these are the implements of the Norsemen's other trad 

fishing : specimens of nets, lines, hooks, spears and har- 
| 3, for whale and walrus, and crossbows, the barbed 
arrow having- a line attached to it for shooting seals. In 
the galleries above is a very complete collection of the 
Scandinavian mammalia — wolves, bears, lynxes, i v s, 
whales, seals, and sea-horses, every kind of fish, every 
bird, land or water, all perfectly well classified, labelled, 
and looked after. Superior persons are in charge of it, 
who can hold their own with the leading naturalists of 
France or England ; and all this is maintained at modest 
cost by the Bergeu corporation. 

The houses are plain, but clean ; no dirt is visible 
anywhere, and there is one sure sign of a desire to make 
life graceful. The hardiest flowers only will grow out 
of doors, but half the windows in the town are filled 
with myrtles, geraniums, or carnations. "With the peo- 
ple themselves we had little opportunity of acquaint- 
ance : but one evening, the second after our arrival, 
we were on deck after dinner between ten and eleven. 
The sunshine was still on the hills. Though chilly to 
us. the air was warm to Bergen ; the bay was covered 
with boats : family groups of citizens out enjoying 
themselves ; music floating on the water and songs 
made sweet by distance. Others were anchored fishing. 

I) rowed me out in the yacht's punt to a point 

half a mile distant. We brought up at an oar's length 
from some young ladies with a youth in charge of 
them. Some question asked as an excuse for conver- 
sation was politely answered. One of them spoke ex- 
cellent English ; she was a lively, clever girl, had been 
in Ireland, and was quick with repartee, well bred 
and refined. Their manners were faultless, but they 
fished as if they had been bred to the trade. Thev had 



The Norway Fjords 281 

oilskin aprons to save their dresses, and they pulled 
up their fish and handled their knives and baits liko 
professionals. 

Our first taste of Norway, notwithstanding the per- 
fume of salt ling, was very pleasant ; but we had far to 
go — as far as Lofoden if we could manage it — and wo 
might not loiter. We left Bergen on the Oth with a lo- 
cal pilot. Trondhjem or Drontheim was the next point 
where we were to expect letters, and two courses led to 
it — either by the open sea outside the shoals and islands, 
or inland by the network of fjords, longer but infinitely 
the most interesting, withtho further merit of water per- 
fectly smooth. We started at six in the morning and 
flew on rapidly among tortuous channels, now sweep- 
ing through a passage scarcely wider than the yacht's 
length, now bursting into an archipelago of islets. The 
■western coast of Norway is low and level — a barren, un- 
dulating country, with the sea flowing freely through tho 
hollows. Here and there are green patches of meadow 
with a few trees, where there would be a bonder's or 
yeoman's farm. Prettily painted lighthouses with their 
red roofs marked our course for us, and a girl or two 
would come out upon the balconies to look at us as we 
rushed by within a gun-shot. Eider-ducks flashed out 
of the water, the father of the family as usual the first to 
fly, and leaving wife and children to tako care of them- 
selves. Fishing-boats crossed us at intervals, and now 
and then a whale spouted. Other signs of life there were 
none. Toward midday we entered the Sogne Fjord ; 
we turned eastward toward the great mountain ranges ; 
and, as in the fairy tale the rock opens to the Enchanted 
Prince, and he finds himself amid gardens and palaces, 
so, as we ran on seemingly upon an impenetrable wall, 
cliff and crag fell apart, and we entered on what might 



282 The Norway Fjords 

be described as an infinite extension of Loch Lomond, 
save only that the mountaius were far grander, the 
slopes more densely wooded, and that, far up, Ave were 
looking on the everlasting snow, or the green glitter of 
the glaciers. 

On either side of us as we steamed on we crossed the 
mouths of other fjords, lateral branches precisely like 
the parent trunk, penetrating, as we could see upon our 
chart, for tens of miles. Norse history grew intelligible 
as we looked at them. Here were the hiding-places 
where the vikings, wickeliugs, hole-and-corner pirates, 
ran in with their spoils ; and here was the explanation 
of their roving lives. The few spots where a family can 
sustain itself on the soil are scattered at intervals of 
leagues. The woods are silent and desolate ; wild ani- 
mals of any kind we never saw ; hunting there could 
have been none. The bears have increased since the 
farming introduced sheep ; but a thousand years ago, 
save a few reindeer and a few grouse and ptarmigan, 
there was nothing which would feed either bear or man. 
Few warm-blooded creatures, furred or feathered, can 
endure the winter cold. A population cannot live by 
fish alone, and thus the Norsemen became rovers by ne- 
cessity, and when summer came they formed in fleets 
and went south to seek their sustenance. The pine for- 
ests were their arsenal ; their vessels were the best aud 
fastest in the world ; the water was their only road ; 
they were boatmen and seamen b}' second nature, and 
the sea-coasts within reach of a summer outing were 
their natural prey. 

We were bound for Trondhjem, but we intended to 
stop occasionally on the way and see what deserved to 
be seen. We were looking for an anchoring-place where 
there was a likelihood of fishing ; and we had seen an 



The Norway Fjords 283 

inlet on the chart, turning out of the Sogne, which 
seemed promising. At the upper end two rivers ap- 
peared to run into it out of fresh-water lakes close by, 
conditions likely to yield salmon. It was our first ex- 
periment. A chart is flat. Imagination, unenlightened 
by experience, had pictured the fjord ending in level 
meadows, manageable streams winding through them, 
and, beyond, perhaps some Rydal or Grassmere lying- 
tranquil among its bills. The pilot said that he knew the 
place, but could give us no description of it. Anticipa- 
tion generally makes mistakes on such occasions, but 
never were fact and fancy more startlingly at variance. 
Lord Salisbury advised people to study geography on 
large maps. Flat charts are more convenient than 
models of a country in relief, but they are treacherous 
misleaders. Grand as the Sogne had been, the inlet 
into which we were now striking was grander still. The 
forests on the shores were denser, the slopes steeper, the 
cliffs and peaks soaring up in more stupendous majesty. 
We ran on thus for eight or ten miles ; then turning 
round a projecting spur, we found ourselves in a land- 
locked estuary smooth as a mirror, the mountains on 
one side of it beautiful in evening sunlight, on the other 
darkening the water with their green purple shadows ; 
at the far extremity, which was still five miles from us, 
a broad white line showed, instead of our " meadow 
stream," a mighty torrent pouring in a cataract over the 
face of a precipice into the sea. 

At the foot of this fall, not three hundred yards from 
it (no bottom was to be found at a greater distance) we 
anchored half an hour later, and looked about us. We 
were in the heart of a primitive Norwegian valley, buried 
among mountains so lofty and so unbroken that no road 
had ever entered, or could enter, it. It was the first of 



284 The Norway Fjords 

many which we saw afterward of the same type, and 
one description will serve for all. 

We were in a circular basin at the head of the fjord. 
In front of us was a river as large as the Clyde rushing 
out of a chasm a thousand feet above us, and plunging 
down in boiling foam. Above this chasm, and inacces- 
sible, was one of the lakes which we had seen on the 
chart, and in which we had expected to catch salmon. 
The mountains round were, as usual, covered with wood. 
At the foot of the fall, and worked by part of it, was a 
large saw-mill with its adjoining sheds and buildings. 
The pines were cut as they were wanted, floated to the 
mill and made into planks, vessels coming at intervals to 
take them away. The Norwegians are accused of wast- 
ing their forests with these mills. We could see no 
signs of it. In the first place, the sides of the fjords are 
so steep that the trees can be got at only in compara- 
tively few places. When they can be got at, there is no 
excessive destruction ; more pines are annually swept 
away by avalanches than are consumed by all the mills 
in Norway ; and the quantity is so enormous that the 
amount which men can use is no more likely to exhaust 
it than the Loch Fyne fishermen are likely to exhaust 
the herring shoals. 

On the other side of the basin where we lay was the 
domain of the owner of the mill. Though the fjord 
ended, the great ravine in which it was formed stretched, 
as we could see, a couple of miles farther, but had been 
blocked by a moraine. The moraines, being formed of 
loose soil and stones deposited by ice in the glacial 
period, are available for cultivation, and are indeed ex- 
cellent land. There were forty or fifty acres of grass 
laid up for hay, a few acres of potatoes, a red-roofed 
sunny farmhouse with large outbuildings, carts and 



The Norway Fjords 2S5 

horses moving about, poultry crowing, cattle grazing, a 
boathouse and platform where a couple of lighters were 
unloading. Here was the house of a substantial, pros- 
perous farmer. His nearest neighbor must have been 
twelve miles from him. He, his children, and farm- 
servants were the sole occupants of the valley. The 
saw- mill was theirs ; the boats Mere theirs ; their own 
hands supplied everything that was wanted. They were 
their own carpenters, smiths, masons, and glaziers; they 
sheared their own sheep, spun and dyed their own wool, 
wove their own cloth, and cut and sewed their own 
dresses. It was a true specimen of primitive Norwegian 
life complete in itself — of peaceful, quiet, self-sufficient, 
prosperous industry. 

The snake that spoiled Paradise had doubtless found 
its way into Nord Gulen (so our valley was named) as 
into other places, but a softer, sweeter-looking spot we 
had none of us ever seen. It was seven in the evening 
when we anchored ; a skiff came off, rowed by a couple 
of plain stout girls with offers of eggs and milk. Fish- 
ing-lines were brought out as soon as the anchor was 
down. The surface water was fresh, and icy cold as 
coming out of the near glaciers ; but it was salt a few 
fathoms down, and almost immediately we had a basket 
of dabs and whiting. 

After dinner, at nine o'clock, with the sun still shin- 
ing, D and I went ashore with our trout rods. We 

climbed the moraine, and a narrow lake lay spread out 
before us, perfectly still, the sides steep, in many places 
precipitous, trees growing wherever a root could strike. 
The lake was three miles long, and seemed to end against 
the foot of a range of mountains 5,000 feet high, the 
peaks of which, thickly covered with snow, were flushed 
with the crimson liqht of the evening. The surface of the 



286 The Norway Fjords 

water was spotted with rings where the trout were ris- 
ing. One of the farmer's boys, who had followed us, 
offered his boat. It was of native manufacture, and not 
particularly water-tight, but we stowed ourselves, one in 
the bow and the other at the stern. The boy had never 
seen such rods as ours; he looked incredulously at them, 
and still more at our flies ; but he rowed us to the top of 
the lake, where a river came down out of the snow- 
mountain, finishing its descent with a leap over a clif£ 
Here he told us there were trout if we could catch them ; 
and he took us deliberately into the spray of the water- 
fall, not understanding, till we were nearly wet through, 
that we had any objection to it. As the evening went 
on the scene became every minute grander and more 
glorious. The sunset colors deepened; a crag just over 
us, 2,000 feet high, stood out clear and sharp against 
the sky. We stayed for two or three hours, idly throw- 
ing our flies and catching a few trout no longer than 
our hands, thereby confirming our friend's impression of 
our inefficiency. At midnight we were in the yacht 
again — midnight, and it was like a night in England at 
the end of June five minutes after sunset. 

This was our first experience of a Norway fjord, and for 
myself I would have been content to go no further; have 
studied in detail the exquisite beauty which was round 
us ; have made friends with the owner and his house- 
hold, and found out what they made of their existence 
under such conditions. There in epitome I should 
have been seeing Norway and the Norwegians. It was no 
Arcadia of piping shepherds. In the summer the 
young men are away at the mountain farms, high graz- 
ing ground underneath the snow-line. The women 
work with their brothers and husbands, and weave and 
make the clothes. They dress plainly, but with good 



The Norway Fjords 2S7 

taste, -with modest embroidery ; a handsome bag bangs 
at the waist of the housewife. There is reading, too, 
and scholarship. A boy met us on a pathway, and 
spoke to us in English. We asked him when he had 
been in England. He had never been beyond his own 
valley ; in the long winter evenings he had taught him- 
self with an English grammar. No wonder with such 
ready adaptabilities the Norwegians make the best of 
emigrants. The overflow of population which once 
directed itself in such rude fashion on Normandy and 
England now finds its way to the United States, and no 
incomers are more welcome there. 

But a yacht is for movement and change. We were 
to start again at noon the next day. The morning was 
hot and bright. While the engineer was getting up 
steam, we rowed to the foot of the great fall. I had 
my small trout rod with me, and trolled a salmon fly on 
the chance. There were no salmon there, but we saw 
brown trout rising ; so I tried the universal favorites — 
a March brown and a red spinner — and in a moment 
had a fish that bent the rod double. Another followed, 
and another, and then I lost a large one. I passed the 

rod to D , in whose hands it did still better service. 

In an hour we had a basket of trout that would have 
done credit to an English chalk stream. The largest 
was nearly three pounds weight, admirably grown, and 
pink ; fattened, I suppose, on the mussels which paved 
the bottom of the rapids. We were off immediately 
after, still guided to a new point by the chart, but not 
in this instance by the chart only. There was a spot 
which had been discovered the year before by the Duke 

of ■ ■, of which we had a vague description. We 

had a log on board which had been kept by the Duke's 
mate, in which he had recorded many curious experi- 



288 The Norway Fjords 

ences ; among the rest an adventure at a certain lake 
not very far from where we were. The Duke had been 
successful there, and his lady had been very nearly suc- 
cessful. " We had grief yesterday," the mate wrote, 
"her Grace losing a twelve-pound salmon which she 
had caught on her little line, and just as they were 
going to hook it, it went off, and we were very sorry." 
The grief went deep, it seemed, for the next day the 
crew were reported as only "being as well as could be 
expected after so melancholy an accident." We deter- 
mined to find the place, and, if possible, avenge her 
Grace. We crossed the Sogne and went up into the Nord 
Fjord — of all the fjords the most beautiful ; for on 
either side there are low terraces of land left by glacier 
action, and more signs of culture and human habita- 
tions. After running for fifty miles, we turned into an 
inlet corresponding tolerably with the Duke's directions, 
and in another half-hour we were again in a mountain 
basin like that which we had left in the morning. The 
cataracts were in their glory, the day having been warm 
for a wonder. I counted seventeen all close about us 
when we anchored, any one of which would have made 
the fortune of a Scotch hotel, and would have been 
celebrated by Mr. Murray in pages of passionate elo- 
quence. But Stromen, or " the Streams," as the place 
was called, was less solitary than Nord Gulen. There 
was a large farm on one side of us. There was a clus- 
ter of houses at the mouth of a river, half a mile from 
it. Above the village was a lake, and at the head of 
the lake an establishment of saw-mills. A gun-shot 
from where we lay, on a rocky knoll, was a white wooden 
church, the Sunday meeting-place of the neighborhood ; 
boats coming to it from twenty miles round bringing 
families in their bright Sunday attire. Roads there 



The Norway Fjords 289 

were none. To have made a league of road among 
such rocks and precipices would have cost the State a 
year's revenue. But the water was the best of ap- 
proaches, and boats the cheapest of carriages. We 
called on the chief proprietor to ask for leave to fish in 
the lake. It was granted with the readiest courtesy ; 
but the Norsemen are proud in their way, and do not 
like the Englishman's habit of treating all the world as 
if it belonged to him. The low meadows round his 
house were bright with flowers ; two kinds of wild 
geranium, an exquisite variety of harebell, sea-pride, 
pansies, violets, and the great pinguicola. Among the 
rocks were foxgloves in full splendor, and wild roses 
just coming into flower. The roses alone of the Nor- 
way flora disappointed me ; the leaves are large, dark, 
and handsome ; the flower is insignificant, and falls to 
pieces within an hour of its opening. We were satis- 
fied that we were on the right spot. The church stood 
on a peninsula, the neck of which immediately adjoined 
our anchorage. Behind it was the lake which had been 
the scene of the Duchess's misfortune. We did not 
repeat our midnight experiment. We waited for a 
leisurely breakfast. Five of the crew then carried the 
yacht's cutter through fifty yards of bushes ; and we 
were on the edge of the lake itself, which, like all these 
inland waters, was glassy, still, deep, and overhung 
with precipices. The owner had suggested to us that 
there were bears among them, which we might kill if 
we pleased, as they had just eaten seven of his sheep. 
So little intention had we of shooting bears that we had 
not brought rifle or even gun with us. Our one idea 
was to catch the Duchess's twelve-pound salmon, or, if 
not that one, at least another of his kindred. 

In a strange lake it is well always to try first with 
19 



290 The Norwarj Fjords 

spinning tackle, a bait trolled with a long line from the 
stern of a boat rowed slowly. It will tell you if there are 
fish to be caught ; it will find out for you where the fish 
most haunt, if there are any. "We had a curious experi- 
ence of the value of this method on a later occasion, and 
on one of our failures. "We had found a lake joined to 
an arm of a fjord by a hundred yards only of clear run- 
ning water. We felt certain of finding salmon there, 
and if we had begun with flies we might have fished all 
day and have caught nothing. Instead of this we began 
to spin. In five minutes we had a run ; we watched 
eagerly to see what we had got. It was a whiting pol- 
lock. "We went on. We hooked a heavy fish. "We as- 
sured ourselves that now we had at least a trout. It 
turned out to be a cod. The sea fish, we found, ran 
freely into the fresh water, and had chased trout and 
salmon completely out. At Stromen we were in better 
luck. We started with phantom minnows on traces of 
strong single gut, forty yards of line, and forty more in 
reserve on the reel. Two men rowed us up the shore 
an oar's length from the rocks. Something soon struck 
me. The reel flew round, the line spun out. In the 
wake of the boat there was a white flash, as a fish 
sprang into the air. Was it the Duchess's salmon ? It 
was very like it, any way ; and if we had lost him, it 
would have been entered down as a salmon. It proved, 
however, to be no salmon, but a sea trout, and such a 
sea trout as we had never seen ; not a bull trout, not a 
peel, not a Welsh sewin, or Irish white trout, but a Nor- 
wegian, of a kind of its own, different from all of them. 
This was the first of many which followed, of sizes vary- 
ing from three pounds to the twelve pounds which the 
mate had recorded ; fine, bold, fighting fish, good to 
look at, good to catch, and as good to eat when we tried 



The Norway Fjords 201 

them. Finally, in the shallower water, at the upper 
end, a fish took me, which from its movements was 
something else, and proved to be a large char, like 
what they take in Derwentwater, only four times the 
weight. Looking carefully at the water we saw more 
char swimming leisurely near the surface, taking flies. 
We dropped our spinning tackle, and took our fly rods ; 
and presently we were pulling in char, the blood royal 
of the salmouidse, the elect of all the finned children of 
the fresh water, as if they had been so many Thames 
chub. 

What need to talk more of fish ? The mate's log had 
guided us well. We caught enough and to spare, and her 
Grace's wrongs were avenged sufficiently. We landed 
for our frugal luncheon— dry biscuits and a whiskey flask 
— but we sat in a bed of whortleberries, purple with 
ripe fruit, by a cascade which ran down out of a snow- 
field. Horace would have invited his dearest friend to 
share in such a banquet. 

The next day was Sunday. The sight of the boats 
coming from all quarters to church was very pretty. 
Fifteen hundred people at least must have collected. I 
attended the service, but could make little of it. I could 
follow the hymns with a book ; but copies of the 
Liturgy, though printed, are not provided for general 
use, and are reserved to the clergy. The faces of the 
men were extremely interesting. There was little in 
them to suggest the old freebooter. They were mild 
and gentle-looking, with fair skins, fair hair, and light 
eyes, gray or blue. The expression was sensible and 
collected, but with nothing about it especially adventur- 
ous or daring. The women, in fact, were more striking 
than their husbands. There was a steady strength in 
their features which implied humor underneath. Two 



292 The Norway Fjords 

girls, I suppose sisters, reminded me of Mrs. Gaskell. 
With the Lutheran, Sunday afternoon is a holiday. A 
yacht in such a place was a curiosity, and a fleet of 
boats surrounded us. Such as liked came on board 
and looked about them. They were well bred and 
showed no foolish surprise. One old dame, indeed, 
being taken down into the ladies' cabin, did find it too 
much for her. She dropped down and kissed the car- 
pet. One of our party wondered afterward whether 
there was any chance of the Norwegians attaining a 
higher civilization. I asked her to define civilization. 
Did industry, skill, energy, sufficient food and raiment, 
sound practical education, and piety which believes with- 
out asking questions, constitute civilization ; and would 
luxury, newspapers, and mechanics' institutes mean a 
higher civilization ? The old question must first be an- 
swered, What is the real purpose of human life ? 

At Stromen, too, we could not linger ; we stopped a 
few hours at Daviken on our way north, a considerable 
place for Norway, on the Nord Fjord. There is a bish- 
op, I believe, belonging to it, but him we did not see. 
We called at the parsonage and found the pastor's wife 
and children. The pastor himself came on board after- 
ward — a handsome man of sixty-seven, with a broad, 
full forehead, large nose, and straight grizzled hair. He 
spoke English, and would have spoken Latin if we had 
ourselves been equal to it. He had read much English 
literature, and was cultivated above the level of our own 
average country clergy. His parish was thirty miles 
long on both sides of the fjord. He had several 
churches, to all of which he attended in turn, with 
boats in summer, and occasionally, perhaps, with the ice 
in winter. We did not ask his salary ; it was doubtless 
small, but sufficient. He had a school under him which 



The Norway Fjords 293 

he said was well attended. The master, who had a State 
certificate, was allowed £25 a year, on which he was able 
to maintain himself. We could not afford time to see 
more of this gentleman, however. We were impatient 
for Trondhjem ; the engineer wanted coals ; we wanted 
our letters and newspapers, and the steward wanted a 
washerwoman. On our way up, too, we had arranged 
to give a day or two to Eoinsdal, Kolf the Ganger's 
country. On an island in Eomsdal Fjord the ruins can 
still be seen of Eolf's Castle. It was there that Rolf, or 
Eollo as we call him, set out with his comrades to con- 
quer Normandy, and produce the chivalry who fought 
at Hastings and organized feudal England. This was 
not to be missed ; and as little, a visit which we had 
promised to a descendant of one of those Normans, a 
distinguished Tory member of the House of Commons, 
and lord of half an English county, who had bought an 
estate in these parts, with a salmon river, and had built 
himself a house there. 

Eomsdal, independent of its antiquarian interest, is 
geologically the most remarkable place which we saw in 
Norway. The fjord expands into a wide estuary or in- 
land lake, into which many valleys open and several large 
streams discharge themselves. Eomsdal proper was once 
evidently itself a continuation of the Great Fjord. The 
mountains on each side of it are peculiarly magnificent. 
On the left Eomsdal's Horn shoots up into the sky, a 
huge peak which no one at that time had ever climbed, 
and will try the mettle of the Alpine Club when they 
have conquered Switzerland. On the right is a precip- 
itous wall of cliffs and crags as high and bold as the 
Horn itself. The upper end of the valley which divides 
them terminates in a narrow fissure, through which a 
river thunders down that carries the water of the qreat 



294 The Norway Fjords 

central ice-field into the valley. From thence it finds its 
way into the fjord, running through the glen itself, 
which is seven or eight miles long, two miles wide, and 
richly cultivated and wooded. From the sea the ap- 
pearance of the shore is most singular. It is laid out in 
level grassy terraces, stretching all round the bay, rising 
in tiers one above the other, so smooth, so even, so 
nicely scarfed, that the imagination can hardly be per- 
suaded that they are not the work of human engineers. 
But under water the formation is the same. At one 
moment you are in twenty fathoms, the next in forty, 
the next your cable will find no bottom ; and it is as cer- 
tain as any conclusion on such subjects can be, that long 
ago, long ages before Eolf, and Knut, and the Vikings, 
the main fjord was blocked with ice ; that while the ice 
barrier was still standing, and the valleys behind it were 
fresh-water lakes, the rivers gradually filled them with 
a debris of stone and soil. Each level terrace was once 
a lake bottom. The ice broke or melted away at inter- 
vals. The water was lowered suddenly forty or fifty 
feet, and the ground lately covered was left bare as the 
ice receded. 

We found our Englishman. His house is under the 
Horn at the bend of the valley, where the ancient fjord 
must have ended. It stands in a green, open meadow, 
approached through alder and birch woods, the first cat- 
aract where the snow-water plunges through the great 
chasm being in sight of the windows, and half a dozen in- 
imitable salmon pools within a few minutes' walk. The 
house itself was simple enough, made of pine wood en- 
tirely, as the Norway houses always are, and painted 
white. It contained some half-dozen rooms, furnished 
in the plainest English style, the summer house of a 
sportsman who is tired of luxury, and finds the absence 



The Norway Fjords 295 

of it an agreeable exchange. A man cannot be always 
catching salmon, even in Norway, and a smattering of 
science and natural history would be a serviceable 
equipment in a scene where there are so many curious 
objects worth attending to. Our friend's tastes, how- 
ever, did not lie in that direction. His shelves were full 
of yellow -backed novels — French, English, and Ger- 
man. His table was covered with the everlasting Sat- 
urday Review, Pall Mall Gazette, Times, and Standard. 
I think he suspected science as a part of modern 
Liberalism ; for he was a Tory of the Tories, a man with 
whom the destinies had dealt kindly, in whose eyes 
therefore all existing arrangements were as they should 
be, and those who wished to meddle with them were 
enemies of the human race. He was sad and sorrowful. 
The world was not moving to his mind, and he spoke 
as if he was ultimas Romanorum. But if an aristocrat, 
he was an aristocrat of the best type — princely in his 
thoughts, princely in his habits, princely even in his 
salmon fishing. The pools in the river being divided 
by difficult rapids, he had a boat and a boatman for 
each. The sport was ample but uniform. There was 
an ice-cellar under the house where we saw half a dozen 
great salmon lying which had been caught in the morn- 
ing. One salmon behaves much like another ; and after 
one has caught four or five, and when one knows that 
one can catch as many more as one wishes, impatient 
people might find the occupation monotonous. Happily 
there was a faint element of uncertainty still left. It 
was possible to fail even in the Romsdal. We were our- 
selves launched in boats in different pools at the risk of 
our lives to try our hands ; we worked diligently for a 
couple of hours, and I at least moved not so much as a 
fin. It was more entertaining: a great deal to listen to 



296 The Norway Fjords 

our host as lie declaimed upon the iniquities of our 
present radical chief. Politics, like religion, are matters 
of faith on which reason says as little as possible. One 
passionate belief is an antidote to another. It is impos- 
sible to continue to believe enthusiastically in a creed 
which a fellow- mortal with as much sense as one's self 
denies and execrates, and the collision of opinion pro- 
duces the prudent scepticism which in most matters is 
the least mischievous frame of mind. 

Here, too, in these pleasant surroundings we would 
gladly have loitered for a day or two ; but the steward 
was clamorous over his dirty linen, and it was not to be. 
My last impressions of Komsdal fell into the form of a 
few doggerel verses, an indulgence on which I rarely 
venture, and which for once, therefore, may be pardoned. 



ROMSDAL FJORD. 

July 11, 1881. 

So this, then, was the Eovers' nest, 

And here the chiefs were bred 
Who broke the drowsy Saxon's rest 

And scared hint in his bed. 

The north wind blew, the ship sped fast, 

Loud cheered the Corsair crew, 
And wild and free above the mast 

The Eaven standard flew. 

Sail south, sail south, there lies the land 
Where the yellow corn is growing ; 

The spoil is for the warrior's hand, 
The serf may have the sowing. 



The Norway Fjords 297 

Let cowards make their parchment laws 
To guard their treasured hoards ; 

The steel shall plead the Eovers' cause, 
Their title-deeds their swords. 

The Raven still o'er Eomsdal's peaks 

Is soaring as of yore, 
But Viking's call in cove or creek 

Calm Romsdal hears no more. 

• Long ages now beneath the soil 

The Ganger has been lying, 
In Botnsdal's bay his quiet toil 
The fisherman is plying. 

The English earl sails idly by, 

And from his deck would trace, 
"With curious antiquarian eye, 

The cradle of his race. 

With time and tide we change and change, 

Yet still the world is young, 
Still free the proudest spirits range, 

The prize is for the strong. 

We deem it chief of glorious things 

In parliaments to shine, 
That orators are modern kings 
And only not divine. 

But men will yet be ruled by men, 

Though talk may have its day, 
And other Eolfs will rise again 

To sweep the rogues away. 

Trondhjem, on which our intentions had been so long 
fixed, was reached at last. The weather had grown cold 
again, cold with cataracts of rain. Let no one go to Nor- 



298 T/ie Norway Fjords 

way even in tbe dog-days without a winter wardrobe. 
The sea- water in our baths was at 47° ; we had fires in 
the cabin stove, and could not warm ourselves ; we shiv- 
ered under four blankets in our berths. The mountains 
were buried in clouds, and the landscape was reduced to 
a dull gray mist ; but the worst of weathers will serve 
for reading letters, laying in coal, and wandering about 
a town. 

Trondhjem ought to have been interesting. It was 
the capital of the old Norse kings. There reigned the 
Olafs. It lies half-way up the Norway coast in the very 
centre of the kingdom, on a broad landlocked bay. The 
situation was chosen for its strength ; for a deep river 
all but surrounds the peninsula on which the town is 
built, and on the laud side it must have been impregna- 
ble. The country behind it is exceptionally fertile, and 
is covered over with thriving farms ; but streets and 
shops are wearisome, and even the cathedral did not 
tempt us to pay it more than a second visit. It is a stern 
solid piece of building, early Norman in type, with doors, 
windows, and arches of zigzag pattern. It had fallen 
out of repair and was now being restored by the State ; 
hundreds of workmen were busy chipping and hammer- 
ing, and were doing their business so well that the new 
work can hardly be distinguished from the old. But 
Catholic Christianity never seems to have got any hearty 
hold on Norway. St. Olaf thrust it upon the people 
at the sword's point, but their imaginations remained 
heathen till the Reformation gave them a creed which 
they could believe. I could find but few tombs in the 
cathedral. I inquired where the old kings and chiefs 
were buried, and no one could tell me. I found, in fact, 
that they had usually come to an end in some sea-battle, 
and had found their graves in their own element. Olaf 



The Norway Fjords 299 

Tryggveson went down, the last survivor in the last ship 
of his fleet, the rays of the sunset flashing on his armor 
as the waves closed over him. St. Olaf died in the same 
way. The absence of monumental stones or figures in 
the great metropolitan church of Norway is strange, sad, 
and impressive. 

The town being exhausted, we drove a few miles out 
of it to see a foss, one of the grandest in the country. 
We said " Oh ! " to it, as Wolfe Tone did to Grattan. 
But waterfalls had become too common with us, and, in 
fact, the excitement about them has always seemed ex- 
aggerated to me. I was staying once in a house in the 
north of New York State when a gentleman came in fresh 
from Niagara, and poured out his astonishment over the 
enormous mass of water falling into the caldron below. 
" Why is it astonishing ? " asked a Yankee who was pres- 
ent. "Why shouldn't the water fall? The astonishing 
thing would be if it didn't fall." 

In short, we left the washerwoman in possession of 
the linen, which we could return and pick up when it 
was done, and we steamed away to examine the great 
Trondhjem Fjord ; fishing and making bad sketches as 
the weather would allow. The weather generally al- 
lowed us to do very little, and drove us upon our books, 
which we could have read as well in our rooms at home. 
I had brought the " Elective Affinities " with me. I had 
not read it for thirty years. Then it had seemed to me 
the wisest of all didactic works of fiction. "Unconscious 
cerebration," as Dr. Carpenter calls it, when I read the 
book again, had revolutionized my principles of judg- 
ment. I could still recognize the moral purpose. There 
are tendencies in human nature, like the chemical 
properties of material substances, which will claim pos- 
session of you, and even appear to have a moral right 



300 The Norway Fjords 

over you. But if you yield you will be destroyed. You 
can command yourself, and you must. Very true, very 
excellent ; and set forth with Goethe's greatest power of 
fascination ; but I found myself agreeing with the rest 
of the world that it was a monstrous book after all. To 
put the taste out I tried Seneca, but I scarcely improved 
matters. Seneca's fame as a moralist and philosopher 
was due, perhaps, in the first instance, to his position 
about the Court, and to his enormous wealth. A little 
merit passes for a great deal when it is framed in gold, 
and once established it would retain its reputation, from 
the natural liking of men for virtuous cant. Those lect- 
ures to Lucilius on the beauty of poverty from the great- 
est money-lender and usurer in the Empire ! Lucilius is 
to practise voluntary hardships, is to live at intervals on 
beggars' fare, and sleep on beggars' pallets, that he may 
sympathize in the sufferings of mortality and be inde- 
pendent of outward things. If Seneca meant all this, 
why did he squeeze five millions of our money out of the 
provinces with loans and contracts ? He was barren as 
the Sahara to me. Not a green spot could I find, not 
a single genial honest thought, in all the four vol- 
umes with which I had encumbered myself. His finest 
periods rang hollow like brass sovereigns. The rain 
would not stop, so we agreed to defy the rain and to 
fish in spite of it. We had the fjord before us for a 
week, and we landed wherever we could hear of lake 
or river. For twelve hours together the waterspout 
would come down upon us ; we staggered about in 
thickest woollen, with macintoshes and india-rubber 
boots. With flapped oilskin hats we should have been 
waterproof, but with one of these I was unprovided ; 
and, in spite of collars and woollen wrappers, the 
water would find its way down my neck till there was 



The Norway Fjords 301 

nothing dry left about me but the feet. Clothes grow 
heavy under such conditions ; we had to take our light- 
est rods with us, and now and then came to grief. I was 
fishing alone one day in a broad, rocky stream fringed 
with alder bushes, dragging my landing-net with me. 
At an open spot where there was a likely run within 
reach I had caught a four-pouud sea trout. I threw 
again ; a larger fish rose and carried off my fly. I 
mounted a "doctor," blue and silver, on the strongest 
casting line in my book, and on the second cast a 
salmon came. The river in the middle was running like 
a mill-sluice. I could not follow along the bank on ac- 
count of the trees ; my only hope was to hold on and 
drag the monster into the slack water under the shore. 
My poor little rod did its best, but its best was not 
enough ; the salmon forced his way into the waves, round 
went the reel, off flew the line to the last inch, and then 
came the inevitable catastrophe. A white streak flashed 
wildly into the air, the rod straightened out, the line 
came home, and my salmon and my bright doctor sped 
away together to the sea. 

We were none the worse for our wettings. Each even- 
ing we came home dripping and draggled. A degree or 
two more of cold would have turned the rain into snow. 
Yet it signified nothing. We brought back our basket- 
fuls of trout, and the Norwegian trout are the best in 
the world. We anchored one evening in a chasm with 
the mountain walls rising m precipices on both sides. 
The next morning as I was laying in my berth I heard 
a conversation between the steward and the captain. 
The captain asked the orders for the day ; the steward 
answered (he was the wit of the ship), " Orders are to 
stretch an awning over the fjord that his lordship may 
fish." 



302 The Norway Fjords 

But the weather so far beat us that we were obliged 
to abandon Lofoden. We were now at the end of July, 
and it was not likely to mend, so we determined to turn 
about and spend the rest of our time in the large fjords 
of South Norway. Trondhjem had been our farthest 
point ; we could not coal there after all, so we had to 
make for Christiansund on the way. I was not sorry for 
it, for Christiansund is a curious little bustling place, 
and worth seeing. It is the headquarters of the North 
Sea fishing trade near the open ocean, and the harbor 
is formed by three or four islands divided by extremely 
narrow channels, with a deep roomy basin in the middle 
of them. One of our crew was ill, and had to be taken 
for two or three days to the hospital. The arrange- 
ments seemed excellent, as every public department is 
in Norway. The town was pretty. The Norwegians 
dress plainly ; but they like bright colors for their 
houses, and the red-tiled roofs and blue and yellow 
painted fronts looked pleasant after our clouds of mist. 

The climate from the proximity of the ocean is said to 
be mild for its latitude. The snow, we were told, lay 
up to the lower windows through the winter, but that 
went for nothing. There were stocks and columbines 
in the gardens ; there were ripe gooseberries and red 
currants and pink thorn and laburnum in flower. The 
harbor w T as full of fishing smacks, like Brixham trawlers, 
only rather more old-fashioned. Gay steam ferry -boats 
rushed about from island to island ; large ships were 
loading; well-dressed strangers w r ere in the streets and 
shops ; an English yacht had come like ourselves to take 
in coal, and was moored side by side with us. There 
are fewer people in the world than we imagine, and we 
fall on old acquaintances when we least expect them. 
The once beautiful was on board, whom I had 



The Norway Fjords 303 

known forty-five years before. She had married a dis- 
tinguished engineer, who was out for his holiday. 

We stayed at Christiansund or in the neighborhood 
till our sick man was recovered, and then followed 
(under better auspices as regarded weather) ten days of 
scenery hunting which need not be described. We 
went to Sondal, Leerdal, Nordal, and I don't know how 
many " dais," all famous places in their way, but with a 
uniformity of variety which becomes tedious in a story. 
One only noticeable feature I observed about the sheds 
and poorer houses in these out-of-the-way districts. 
They lay turf sods over the roofs, which become thick 
masses of vegetation ; and on a single cottage roof you 
may see half a dozen trees growing ten or fifteen feet 
high. For lakes and mountains, however beautiful, the 
appetite becomes soon satiated. They please, but they 
cease to excite ; and there is something artificial in 
the modern enthusiasm for landscapes. Velasquez or 
Rubens could appreciate a fine effect of scenery as well 
as Turner or Stan-field ; but with them it was a frame- 
work, subordinate to some human interest in the centre 
of the picture. I suppose it is because man in these 
democratic days has for a time ceased to touch the 
imagination that our poets and artists are driven back 
upon rocks and rivers and trees and skies ; but the 
eclipse can only be temporary, and I confess, for myself, 
that, sublime as the fjords wei'e, the saw-mills and farm- 
houses and fishing-boats, and the patient, industrious 
people wresting a wholesome living out of that stern 
environment, affected me very much more nearly. I 
cannot except even the Geiranger, as tremendous a piece 
of natural architecture as exists in the globe. The fjord 
in the Geiranger is a quarter of a mile wide and 600 
fathoms deep. The walls of it are in most places not 



304 The Norway Fjords 

figuratively, but literally, precipices, and the patch of 
sky above your head seems to narrow as you look up. 
I hope I was duly impressed with the wonder of this ; 
but even here there was something which impressed me 
more, and that was the singular haymaking which was 
going on. The Norwegians depend for their existence 
on their sheep and cattle. Every particle of grass avail- 
able for hay is secured ; and grass, peculiarly nutritious, 
often grows on the high ridges 2,000 feet up. This 
they save as they can, and they have original ways of 
doing it. In the Geiranger it is tied tightly in bundles 
and flung over the cliffs to be gathered up in boats be- 
low. But science, too, is making its way in this north- 
ern wilderness. The farmhouses, for shelter's sake, are 
always at the bottom of valleys, and are generally near 
the sea. At one of our anchorages, shut in as usual 
among the mountains, we observed one evening from 
the deck what looked like a troop of green goats skipping 
and bounding down the cliffs. We discovered through 
a binocular that they were bundles of hay. The clever 
bonder had carried up a wire, like a telegraph wire, 
from his courtyard to a projecting point of mountain ; on 
this ran iron rings as travellers which brought the grass 
directly to his door. 

Twice only in our wanderings we had fallen in with our 
tourist countrymen : once at Lserdal, where a high road 
comes down to a pier, and is met there by a correspond- 
ing steamer ; the second time coming down from the 
Geiranger, when we passed a boat with two ladies and 
a gentleman, English evidently, the gentleman touching 
his hat to the Yacht Club Hag as we went by. Strange 
and pleasant the short glimpse of English faces in that 
wild chasm ! But we were plunged into the very mid- 
dle of our countrymen at the last spot in which we went 



The Norway Fjords 305 

in search of the picturesque — a spot worth a few words 
as by far the most regularly beautiful of all the places 
which we visited. At the bead of one of the long in- 
lets which runs south, I think, out of the Hardanger 
Fjord (but our rapid movements were confusing) stands 
Odde, once a holy place in Scandinavian mythological 
history. There is another Odde in Iceland, also sacred 
— I suppose Odin had something to do with it. The 
Odde Fjord is itself twenty miles long, and combines 
the softest and grandest aspects of Norwegian scenery. 
The shores are exceptionally well cultivated, richer than 
any which we had seen. Every half mile some pretty 
farmhouse was shining red through clumps of trees, the 
many cattle-sheds speaking for the wealth of the owner. 
Above, through the rifts of higher ranges you catch a 
sight of the Central Icefield glacier streaming over 
among the broken chasms and melting into waterfalls. 
At Odde itself there is an extensive tract of fertile soil 
on the slope of a vast moraine, which stretches com- 
pletely across the broad valley. On the sea at the land- 
ing-place is a large church and two considerable hotels, 
which were thronged with visitors. A broad road ex- 
cellently engineered leads down to it, and we found a 
staff of English - speaking guides whose services we 
did not require. We had seen much of the ice action 
elsewhere, but the performances of it at Odde were 
more wonderful even than at Romsdal. The moraine is 
perhaps four hundred and fifty feet high ; the road 
winds up the side of it among enormous granite bowl- 
ders, many of them weighing thousands of tons, which 
the ice has tossed about like pebble-stones. On reach- 
ing the crest you see a lake a quarter of a mile off; but 
before you come to it you cross some level fields, very 
rich to look at, and with patches of white-heart cherry - 
20 



306 The Norway Fjords 

trees scattered about, the fruit, when we came there at 
the end of August, being actually ripe and extremely 
good. These fields were the old lake bottom ; but the 
river has cut a dike for itself through the top of the 
moraine, and the lake has gone down some twenty feet, 
leaving them dry. 

The weather (penitent, perhaps, for having so long 
persecuted us) was in a better humor. Our days at 
Odde were warm and without a cloud, and we spent 
them chiefly by the lake, which was soft as Windermere. 
We had come into a land of fruit ; not cherries only, 
but wild raspberries and strawberries were offered us 
in leaves by girls on the road. The road itself followed 
the lake margin, among softly rounded and wooded 
hills, the great mountains out of sight behind them, 
save only in one spot where, through a gorge, you looked 
straight up to the eternal snow-field, from which a vast 
glacier descended almost into the lake itself, the ice im- 
itating precisely the form of falling water, crushing its 
way among the rocks, parting in two where it met a pro- 
jecting crag, and uniting again behind it, seeming even 
to heave and toss in angry waves of foam. 

From this glacier the lake was chiefly fed, and was 
blue, like skimmed milk, in consequence. We walked 
along it for several miles. Fishing seemed hopeless in 
water of such a texture. As we turned a corner two 
carriages dashed by us with some young men and dogs 
and guns — cockneys out for their holiday. "Any sport, 
sir?" one of them shouted to me, seeing a rod in my 
hand, in the cheerful familiar tone which assumed that 
sport must be the first and only object which one could 
have in such a place. They passed on to the hotel, and 
the presence of so many of our own countrymen was 
inclining us to cut short our own stay. Some of the 



The Norway Fjords 307 

party, however, wished to inspect the glacier. We were 
ourselves assured that there were salmon in the lake, 
which, in spite of the color, could be caught there. It 
was the last opportunity which we should have, as after 
Odde our next move was to be Christiania. So we agreed 
to take one more day there and make the most of it. 
We got two native boats, and started to seek adventures. 
Alas ! we had the loveliest views ; but the blue waters of 
Odde, however fair to look upon, proved as ill to fish in 
as at the first sight of them we were assured they must be. 
Our phantom minnows could not be seen three inches 
off, and the stories told us we concluded to be fables in- 
vented for the tourists. I, for my own part, had gone 
to the farthest extremity of the lake, where it ended in 
a valley like Borrodale. I was being rowed listlessly 
back, having laid aside my tackle, and wishing that I 
could talk to my old boatman, who looked as if all the 
stories of the Edda were inside him, when my eye was 
suddenly caught by a cascade coming down out of a 
ravine into the lake which had not been bred in the 
glaciers, and was as limpid as the ltchen itself. At the 
mouth of this it was just possible that there might be a 
char or something with fins that could see to rise. It 
was my duty to do what I could for the yacht's cuisine. 
I put together my little trout rod for a last attempt, and 
made my boatman row me over to it. The clear water 
was not mixing with the blue, but pushing its way 
through the milky masses, which were eddying and 
rolling as if they were oil. In a moment I had caught 
a sea trout. Immediately after I caught a second, and 
soon a basketful. They had been attracted by the purer 
liquid, and were gathered there in a shoal. They were 
lying with their noses up the stream at the farthest 
point to which they could go. I got two or three, and 



30S The Norway Fjords 

those the largest, by throwing my fly against the rocks 

exactly at the fall. D came afterward and caught 

more and bigger fish than I did ; and our sport, which 
indeed we had taken as it came without specially seek- 
ing for it, was brought to a good end. The end of 
August was come, and with it the period of our stay in 
the fjords. We had still to see Christiania, and had no 
time to lose. But of all the bits of pure natural loveli- 
ness which we had fallen in with, Odde and its blue 
lake, and glacier, and cherry orchards, and wild straw- 
berries has left the fairest impression ; perhaps, however, 
only because it was the last, for we were going home ; 
and they say that when a man dies, the last image which 
he has seen is photographed on his retina. 

But now away. The smoke pours through the fun- 
nel. The engine is snorting like an impatient horse. 
The quick rattle of the cable says that the anchor is off 
the ground. We were off and had done with fjords. 
The inner passages would serve no longer ; we had to 
make for the open sea once more to round the foot of 
the peninsula. It is at no time the softest of voyages. 
The North Sea is not the home of calm sunsets and 
light-breathing zephyrs, and it gave us a taste of its 
quality, which, after our long sojourn in smooth water, 
was rather startling. If the wind and sea are ever wilder 
than we found them in those latitudes, I have no desire 
to be present at the exhibition. We fought the storm 
for twenty-four hours, and were then driven for refuge 
into a roadstead at the southern extremity of Norway, 
near Mandal. The neighborhood was interesting, if we 
had known it, for at Mandal Mary Stuart's Earl of Both- 
well was imprisoned when he escaped from the Orkneys 
to Denmark. The dungeon where he was confined is 
still to be seen, and as the Earl was an exceptional 



The Norway Fjords 309 

villain, the authentic evidence of eyesight that he had 
spent an uncomfortable time in his exile would not 
have been unwelcome. But we discovered what we had 
lost when it was too late to profit by our information. 
We amused ourselves by wandering on shore and ob- 
serving the effect of the change of latitude on vegeta- 
tion. We found the holly thriving, of which in the 
north we had not seen a trace, and the hazel bushes 
had ripe nuts on them. There was still a high sea 
the next day ; but we made thirty miles along the coast 
to Arendal, an advanced thriving town of modern aspect, 
built in a sheltered harbor, with broad quays, fine build- 
ings, and a gay parade. It was almost dark when we 
entered ; and the brilliant lights and moving crowds and 
carriages formed a singular contrast to the unfinished 
scenes of unregenerate nature which we had just left. 
The Norse nature, too, hard and rugged as it may be, 
cannot resist the effect of its occupations. Aristotle ob- 
serves that busy sea-towns are always democratic. Nor- 
way generally, though Republican, is intensely Conserva- 
tive. The landowners, who elect most of the repre- 
sentatives, walk in the ways of their fathers, and have 
the strongest objection to new ideas. Arendal, I was 
told, sends to Parliament an eloquent young Radical, the 
admired of all the newspapers. There is, I believe,* 
no present likelihood that he will bring about a revolu- 
tion. But there is no knowing when the king is an 
absentee. We spent one night at Arendal. In the 
morning the storm had left us, and before sunset we 
were at anchor at Christiania. It was Sunday. The 
weather was warm, the water smooth, the woody islands 
which surround and shelter the anchorage were glowing 

* Written in 1881. The movement for separation from Sweden 
has advanced rapidly in the last ten years. 



310 The Norway Fjords 

in gold and crimson. Christiania, a city of domes and 
steeples, lay before us with its fleets of steamers and 
crowded shipping. Hundreds of tiny yachts and pleas- 
ure-boats were glancing round us. There is no sour 
Sabbatarianism in Norway. One of the islands is a kind 
of Cremorne. "When night fell the music of the city 
band came fitfully across the water ; blue lights blazed 
and rochets flashed into the sky with their flights of 
crimson stars. It was a scene -which we had not ex- 
pected in these northern regions ; but life can have its 
enjoyments even above the sixtieth parallel. 

There is much to be seen in Christiania. There is a 
Parliament house and a royal palace, and picture galler- 
ies and botanical gardens, and a museum of antiquities, 
and shops where articles of native workmanship can bo 
bought by Englishmen at three times their value, and 
ancient swords and battle-axes, and drinking-horns and 
rings and necklaces, genuine, at present, for all I know 
to the contrary, but capable of imitation, and likely in 
these days of progress to be speedily imitated. If the 
Holy Coat of Treves has been multiplied by ten, why 
should there not be ten swords of Olaf Tryggveson? 
But all these things are written of in the handbook of 
Mr. Murray, where the curious can read of them. One 
real wonder we saw and saw again at Christiania, and 
could not satisfy ourselves with seeing ; and with an ac- 
count of this I shall end. It was a viking's ship ; an 
authentic vessel in which, while Norway was still hea- 
then, before St. Olaf drilled his people into Christianity 
with sword and gallows, a Norse chief and his crew had 
travelled these same waters, and in which, when he died, 
he had been laid to rest. It had been closed in with peat, 
which had preserved the timbers. It had been recovered 
almost entire — the vessel itself, the oars, the boats, the 



The Norway Fjords 311 

remnants of the cordage, even down to the copper cal- 
dron in which he and his men had cooked their dinners ; 
the names, the age, the character of them all buried in 
the soil, but the proof surviving that they had been the 
contemporaries and countrymen of the "Danes" who 
drove the English Alfred into the marshes of Somerset- 
shire. 

Our yacht's company were as eager to see this ex- 
traordinary relic as ourselves. We went in a body, and 
never tired of going. It had been found fifty miles 
away, had been brought to Christiania, and had been 
given in charge to the University. A solid weather-proof 
shed had been built for it, where we could study its 
structure at our leisure. 

The first thing that struck us all was the beauty of the 
model, as little resembling the old drawings of Norse or 
Saxon ships as the figures which do duty there as men 
resemble human beings. White, of Cowes, could not 
build a vessel with finer lines, or offering less resistance 
to the water. She was eighty feet long, and seventeen 
and a half feet beam. She may have drawn three feet, 
scarcely more, when her whole complement was on 
board. She was pierced for thirty-two oars, and you 
could see the marks on the side of the rowlocks where 
the oars had worn the timber. She had a single mast, 
stepped in the solid trunk of a tree which had been laid 
along the keel. The stump of it was still in the socket. 
Her knee timbers were strong ; but her planks were un- 
expectedly slight, scarcely more than half an inch thick. 
They had been formed by careful splitting ; there was no 
sign of the action of a saw, and the ends of them had 
been trimmed off by the axe. They had been set on and 
fastened with iron nails, and the seams had been care- 
fully calked. Deck she had none — a level floor a couple 



312 The Norway Fjords 

of feet below the gunwale ran from stem to stem. The 
shields of the crew formed a bulwark, and it was easy to 
see where they had been fixed. Evidently, therefore, 
she had been a war-ship ; built for fighting, not for car- 
rying cargoes. But there was no shelter, and could 
have been none ; no covered forecastle, no stern cabin. 
She stood right open fore and aft to wind and waves ; 
and though she would have been buoyant in a sea-way, 
and in the heaviest gale would have shipped little water, 
even Norsemen could not have been made of such im- 
penetrable stuff that they would have faced the ele- 
ments with no better protection in any distant expe- 
dition. That those who sailed in her were to some 
extent careful of themselves is accidentally certain. 
Among the stores was a plank with crossbars nailed 
upon it, meant evidently for landing on a beach. One 
of our men, who was quick at inferences, exclaimed at 
once : "These fellows must have worn shoes and stock- 
ings. If they had been barelegged they would have 
jumped overboard and would not have wanted a land- 
ing-plank." 

I conclude, therefore, that she was not the kind of 
vessel of which the summer squadrons were composed 
that came down our English Channel, but that she was 
intended either for the fjords only, or for the narrow 
waters between Norway and Sweden and Denmark at 
the mouth of the Baltic. Her rig must have been 
precisely what we had been lately seeing on the Sogne 
or Hardanger ; a single large sail on a square yard fit 
for running before the wind, or with the wind slightly 
on the quarter, but useless at any closer point. The 
rudder hung over the side a few feet from the stern, a 
heavy oar with a broad blade and a short handle, shaped 
so exactly like the rudders of the Roman vessels on 



The Norway Fjords 313 

Trajan's Column, that the Norsemen, it is likely, had 
seeu the pattern somewhere and copied it. 

Such is this strange remnant of the old days which 
Las suddenly started into life. So vivid is the impres- 
sion which it creates, that it is almost as if some Sweyn 
or Harold in his proper person had come back among 
us from the grave. If we were actually to see such a 
man we should be less conscious perhaps of our personal 
superiority than we are apt to imagine. A law of com- 
pensation follows us through our intellectual and me- 
chanical progress. The race collectively knows and can 
execute immeasurably greater things than the Norsemen. 
Individually they may have been as ready and intelligent 
as ourselves. The shipwright certainly who laid the 
lines of the Yiking's galley would have something to 
teach as well as to learn in the yard of a modern yacht- 
builder. 

But enough now of Norway. Our time was out ; our 
tour was over ; we seated ourselves once more on our 
wishing carpet, and desired to be at Cowes ; we were 
transported thither with the care and almost the speed 
with which the genius of the lamp transported the 
palace of Aladdin, and we felt that we had one superior- 
itv at least which the Viking would have envied us. 



NORWAY ONCE MORE 

When I published two years ago a sketch of a summer 
holiday iu the Norway fjords I supposed that I had seen 
my last of Norse mountains and lakes, and bunder farms, 
and that this little record would be all which would re- 
main to me of a time which was so delightful in the en- 
joyment. The poor Severn, which in 1881 was our 
floating home, now lies among the krakens at the bot- 
tom of the North Sea, or ground to pieces by the teeth 
of the rocks which one treacherous July morning seized 
and devoured her. Faithfully the poor yacht had done 
her duty bearing us from lake to lake and wonder to 
wonder, like Prince Ahmed's enchanted carpet. She had 
been cut off in her youth, before her engines had 
rusted or screw-shaft cracked. She had ended in honor, 
and had not been left to rot away ingloriously or subside 
into tug or tender. 

Dead, however, as was the Severn's body, the soul or 
idea of her was not dead, but in another year had revived 
again, and gathered a second body about it, more beauti- 
ful than the first. In spite of Destiny, her owner perse- 
vered in his resolution to penetrate again those virgin in- 
lets, which are yet unhaunted by tourists ; to fish again in 
those waters where the trout are still ferce naturae, un- 
reared in breeding ponds, and unwatched by gamekeep- 
ers. He invited me to be once more his companion, aud 
here, in consequence, is a second record of our wander- 
ings, set idly down for my own pleasure. In one sense the 



Norway Once More 315 

whole experience was new, for in 18S1 winter stayed to 
spend the summer in Norway, and when it did not rain it 
snowed. In 1884, for half July at least, we were treated 
to sky and mountain which were dazzling in their brill- 
iancy, and to the tropical temperature of which we had 
read in guide-books, hitherto with most imperfect belief. 
Bat besides, I have actual novelties (three at least) which 
deserve to be each in some way related — one an inci- 
dent instructive to English visitors in those parts, one a 
freak of nature in a landscape, the third a small idyllic 
figure of Norwegian life. If I can do justice to these, or 
even to either of them, I flatter myself that I shall not be 
reproached with being tedious. They will come in their 
places, and I will note each as I arrive at it. 

We were going to amuse ourselves — to fish, perhaps, 
in the first instance, but not entirely to fish. Y\e had 
no river of our own. The best salmon streams were all 
let, and we had to depend on the hospitality of the na- 
tive proprietors. And of the brown trout, which are so 
large and so abundant in the inland waters, there are 
none in those which communicate with the fjords, for they 
are eaten up by their large relations from the sea, which 
annually spend the autumn there. We meant to loiter 
at our pleasure among the large estuaries while the 
woods were still green and the midnight sun was still 
shining on the snow-peaks ; to anchor where we could 
find bottom, which in those long water-filled crevasses is 
usually out of cable reach ; in the way of fishing, to take 
what might offer itself, and be as happy with a little as 
with much. Our party was small — our host, myself, and 
my son A., who had just done with the University, and 
had his first acquaintance to make with the Salmonidae. 

We steamed out of Harwich in the first gray of morn- 
ing on June 27. The engines waking into life, and the 



316 Norway Once More 

rattling of the anchor chains, disturbed our dreams ; but 
we sank to sleep again under the even pulsation of the 
screw. When we came on deck we were far out iu the 
North Sea, the water shining like oil, the engines go- 
ing a hundred to the minute, our head pointing as on 
our first expedition to Udsire Light, 500 miles N.N.E. of 
us, and the yacht rushing steadily on at an accurate nine 
knots. Yacht life is active idleness — we have nothing to 
do and we do it. Vessels come in sight and pass out of 
it. We examine them with our binoculars, ascertain 
what they are and whither they are bound. "We note the 
water, and judge the depth of it by the color. We have 
the chart before us ; we take our observations, and prick 
down our position upon it with a precision which can 
be measured by yards. We lie on sofas and read novels ; 
I read a translation in MS., which our entertainer him- 
self was just completing, of a Norse novel, a story of an 
old rough sea-captain who in an ill day for himself fell 
among the Methodists, had his tough heart nearly 
broken by them, and recovered only his wits and his na- 
tive strength of soul when his life was leaving his body. 
When we tire of our studies we overhaul our fishing 
tackle, knot casting lines, and splice new traces. Our 
host himself is an experienced fisherman. His skill in 
this department is inherited. He tells us a story of his 
great-grandfather, who, when he could walk no longer, 
for gout and rheumatism, fished from the back of a 
steady old cart-horse, and had the mane and tail of his 
charger shaved off to prevent his flies from catching in 
them. 

At midday we see a smack ahead of us making sig- 
nals. She lowers a boat. We stop our engines and 
the boat comes alongside, with three as choice speci- 
mens of English sea ruffians as eye had ever rested on. 



Norway Once More 317 

They had mackerel to dispose of. They wanted to ex- 
change their mackerel for schnapps. They would not 
take money. It was to be ^irils or no trade. They 
looked already so soaked with spirits that a gallon of 
alcohol might have been distilled out of the blood of 
either of them. They had a boy with them with a 
bright, innocent, laughing face. Poor little fellow, flung 
by the fates into such companionship ! They got no 
schnapps from us, and we got no mackerel. They 
rowed back, and probably, before the day was out, fell 
in with less scrupulous passers-by. 

Our yacht is proud of her punctuality. TVe know 
our speed and we know our distance each within a deci- 
mal fraction. We had sent word that we should reach 
Bergen at 3 o'clock on Sunday afternoon. At the 
mouth of the fjord which leads up to the great empo- 
rium of the fish trade we were five minutes before our 
time, but the error was accounted for by three hours of a 
favorable tide. As we passed in we saw the glassy swell 
combing over the rock where the Severn lies buried. 
On that fatal morning it so happened that the sea was 
absolutely still ; the treacherous surface was unbroken 
even by a line of foam, and she had rushed blindly upon 
her fate. "We do as the wise men bid us do, waste no 
time in mourning over the unalterable past. We were 
not wrecked this time. In a few minutes we were fly- 
ing up the low, deep, narrow channels between the isl- 
ands which fringe the western side of the Scandinavian 
peninsula. The smallest boats traverse these natural 
roads without danger from wind or wave ; the largest, 
when the entrance is once passed, fear nothing from 
rock or shoal, the few 7 dangerous spots being faithfully 
marked by perches. Instead of fog and mist and rain, 
with which Norway had last welcomed us, we saw it now 



318 Norway Once More 

under the softest, bluest, calmest summer sky. Snow was 
still visible on the high interior ranges, but in patches 
which were fast dissolving, the green farmsteads and 
woods and red-roofed houses gleaming as if we were in 
a land of eternal sunshine. In two hours we were at 
Bergen, the City of Hills. Twice I had been there be- 
fore. I had studied its markets and its museums, and 
I thought I knew what it was like. But Bergen itself I 
had never seen till now. The roof of cloud which had 
lain half down the mountain had now lifted off. As it 
was Sunday the shipyards were silent. The harbor 
was dotted over with boats, with smart young ladies 
in bright dresses and with colored parasols. Steam 
launches rushed to and fro. The merchants' villas 
shone white among the elms and limes. Brigs and 
schooners were resting at their anchors. Even the huge 
and hideous Hull steamers suggested life and prosper- 
ous energy. " Have you many rich people here ? " I asked 
of a citizen who came on board. "Not rich," he said, 
"but plenty who can have everything they wish for." 
In Norway too they have at last caught the plague of 
politics. Parties run high, and Bergen is for progress 
and Radicalism ; but Radicals there, as the same gentle- 
man explained to me, would be called Conservatives in 
England ; they want ministers responsible to the Storth- 
ing, economy in the government, and stricter adher- 
ence to the lines of the Constitution — that is all. We 
landed and heard the Lutheran evening service at the 
Cathedral, which has been lately repaired — the wave of 
church restoration having spread even to Norway. 

We gave one clear day to Bergen, and on July 2, with 
pilot on board, we lifted anchor and sped away through 
the inland channels up north to the Sogne Fjord. We 
had no clear route laid out for us. Our object, as before, 



On 00 More 319 

: 3 find quiet nooks or corners where we con" 1 si y 
as long as we pleased, with the yacht for quart pa 

re, fish, botanize, geologize, and make acquaint 
with the ind their ways. The Sogne vans up 

inl the heart :: the Giant Mountains — the home : 
TroUs ind Jotans; the shores on eith si - sheei 
out of the narrow channel : 3, s 

between the rents of the crags, four thousand feet above 
as, ] ts of melted ice. and in such 

sultry weather as we were then experienci og the 

- with blue. Our Bergen friends had marked out a 
few places whi I ighl might a swerforns, 

we tried them one after the other. We saw scenery of 
infinite variety — now among precipices so vast thai the 
yachts Iwarfed into a cock-boat ; now in sunny 

bays with softer outlines, where the moraines, left by 
the ice, were covered with thriving homesteads, ; n tty 
villages with white church and manse and rounded pine 

Is. There, for the most part, are the homes oi tl 
Norway peasantry. Eleven-twelfths of the whole surfr.ee 
of the country is rock or glacier or forest, uncultiv 
uninhabitable by living tore, brute or human. But 

the Norwegian makes the most of the stinted gifts 
nature has allowed him. "Wherever there is a ro 1 
soil which will feed cattle or grow an oat-crop, there his 
bond is busy. If he cannot live there, he carries over 
bis sheep and cows in his boats to feed. On the an- 
cient lake" I when the fjords were filled 
• ith ice, and left dry when the water fell, there are I 
of land which would be called rich and beautiful in any 
country in the world. In such spots, and in such weather, 
we might well 1 tempi 1 to linger. Tourists make long 
ys to see Windermere or Loch Katrine. We had 
Windermere and Loch Katrine ten times macmifie.l at 



320 Norway Once More 

every turn of the winding Sogne — we could choose as 
we pleased between desolate grandeur and the gentler 
homes of industry and human life. 

Any one of these places might have suited us had we 
been obliged to stay there, but we had free choice to go 
anywhere, aud we wanted all the various charms com- 
bined. We wanted a good harbor. We wanted trout 
or salmon for ourselves, and sea-fish for the crew, fresh 
meat being hard to come by. At one place we were 
promised a sheep, if the bears had not eaten it. I believe 
in that instance we did get the sheep, being a lean, 
scraggy thing which the bears had despised ; but we 
had many mouths to feed, and the larder could not be 
left to chance. The flowers everywhere were most 
beautiful ; the wild roses, which in 1881 had been checked 
by the cold, were still shortdived, but the fullest, reddest, 
and most abundant that I had ever seen. The long 
daylight intensifies the colors. The meadows were 
enamelled with harebells. On the moist rocks on the 
lake sides grew gigantic saxifrages, pure white, eighteen 
inches high. On a single stem I counted three hundred 
blossoms, and they were so hardy that one plant lived 
in full flower for a fortnight in a glass on oiu* cabin table. 
There were curious aspects of human life too. One night, 
July 2 — St. John's Day by the old reckoning — as we lay 
at anchor in a gorge, which from the land must have been 
inaccessible, we saw a large fire blazing, and figures leap- 
ing through the flame. It was the relic of a custom, once 
wide as the Northern hemisphere, on the festival of the 
summer solstice, old as the Israelitish prophet who saw 
the children passed through the fire to Moloch. I 
observed the same thing forty-three years ago in the 
market-place at Killarney. Thousands of years it has 
survived, down to these late times of ours, in which, like 



Norway Once More 321 

much besides, it will now end — dissolved in the revolu- 
tionary acids of scientific civilization. 

These things had their interest, but we were still dis- 
satisfied, and we flew from spot to spot in a way to make 
the pilot think us maniacs. "Tout va bien," said the 
Paris Terrorist in 1793 ; " mais le pain manque." All 
was well with us, but fish were wanting ; and when we 
had wasted a week of our month in following the direc- 
tions of our acquaintance at Bergen, we decided to lose 
no more time in exploring, and to make for quarters of 
which we had ourselves had experience on our first 
visit. I shall mention no names, for one of these places 
is a secret of our own, and we do not wish them to be- 
come tourist-haunted. No road goes near them, nor ever 
can, for they are protected on the land side by mountains 
steeper and vaster than the walls of Rasselas's enchanted 
valley. But yacht visitors might reach them, nay, have 
actually reached, not the one I speak of, but another, 
leaving an unpleasant taste behind them. I will not ex- 
tend their opportunities of making Englishmen unpop- 
ular. 

Well, then, to decide was to execute. A few hours 
later we found ourselves anchored in a landlocked bay 
which I will call for convenience's sake Bruysdal. There 
are fifty Bruysdals in Norway, and this is not one of them. 
That is all which I need say. It forms the head of a 
deep inlet, well stocked with dabs and haddock, and 
whiting, and wolf-fish and other monsters. The land- 
scape is at once grand and gentle ; mighty snow-capped 
mountains cleft into gorges so deep and dark that the 
sun, save in the height of summer, can never look into 
them, while on the immediate shores rich meadow land 
and grassy undulating hills stretch along the fjord for 
miles ; and from the estate of a prosperous yeoman who 
21 



322 Norway Once More 

rules paternally over his mountain valley, a river runs 
in near our anchorage, which, after leaving a lake half 
a mile from the sea, winds down with an ever-flowing 
stream, through heathery pine clad slopes and grassy 
levels covered with wild roses and bilberries. The 
cuckoos were calling in the woods as we came up ; 
widgeon and wild duck were teaching their young 
broods to take care of themselves ; oyster catchers flew 
to and fro — they have no fear of men in a place where 
no one cares to hurt them. Boats with timber were 
passing down the river to a saw-mill opposite the mouth. 
The lake out of which it flows is two miles long, and 
ends in a solitary glen, closed in by precipices at the 
head and on either side. There was beauty here, and 
grandeur, with food of all kinds, from mutton to bilber- 
ries, now ripe and as large as outdoor grapes. Above 
all, we knew by past experience that sea-trout swarmed 
in the lake, and trout in the river. The owner's ac- 
quaintance we had made before, and the old man, learn- 
ing from the pilot who we were, came on board at once 
with his son and the schoolmaster to pay his respects. He 
himself was hale and stout, age perhaps about sixty ; 
with dark hair which as yet had no gray streaks in it ; in 
manner very much that of a gentleman doing the honors 
of his country and his dominions with rough dignity. 
His lake, his river, all that he had, he gave us free use 
of. The fish had not come up in any number yet, but 
perhnps there might be some. He accepted a glass of 
wine, being temperate, but not severely abstemious. The 
younger ones touched nothing of that kind — To (alters 
they called themselves. They were two fine - looking 
men, but without the father's geniality, and with a slight 
tinge of self-righteousness. The interest of the moment 
was a bear which they had just killed among them, hav- 



Norway Once Mo»e 323 

ing caught him committing murder among the sheep. 
As the flocks increase the bears multiply along with 
them, and the shooting one is an event to be made much 
of. This particular offender's head came home with us, 
swinging in the rigging, and looked so savage, grinning 
there, as much to reduce the pleasure of the crew in 
going ashore among the bilberries. 

At Bruysdal all our desires were at last fulfilled. The 
steward could get his milk and mutton. The sea-fish 
swarmed. The spot itself combined the best beauties 
of the Norwegian landscapes — wild nature and thriving 
human history. In the lake, as our entertainer had 
said, there were not many fish, but there were enough. 
The water was as clear as the air. A tropical sun shone 
fiercely on its windless surface, conditions neither of 
them especially favorable for salmon fishing ; but, row- 
ing along the shores, on the edge " between the deep 
and the shallow," with our phantom minnows, we caught 
what satisfied, without surfeiting, the appetite for de- 
struction ; salmon-peel, sewin, sea-trout, or whatever we 
pleased to call them, from three to nine pounds weight, 
gallant fellows that would make the reel spin and scream. 
And then the luncheon, never to be forgotten, on bis- 
cuits soaked in the ice-cold stream, the purple bilberries, 
the modest allowance from the whiskey flask, and the 
pipe to follow, in the heather under the shade of a pine- 
tree or a juniper, surrounded by ferns and flowers of 
exquisite variety. I should have no good opinion of 
any man who, in such a scene, had anything left to wish 
for. 

One day there was another bear-hunt. Three sheep 
had been killed in the night again, in the glen at the 
head of the lake. The bonder's people turned out, and 
the cries of the beaters among the crags, and the cow- 



324 Norway Once More 

horns echoing from cliff to cliff, brought back memories 
of old days, on the middle lake at Killarney ; when the 
Herberts reigned at Mucross, and the bay of the blood- 
hounds was heard on the hills, and the driven deer 
would take the water, and meet his end from a rifle 
bullet, and the huntsman would wind his death-note on 
the bugle. Beautiful ! all that was, and one cannot think 
of it without regret that it is gone. But it was artificial, 
not natural. Our Norway bear-hunt was nature and 
necessity, the genuine chase of a marauding and danger- 
ous animal. This time unfortunately it was not success- 
ful. The brown villains had stolen off through a pass in 
the mountains, and escaped the penalties of their sins. 

Settled down as w 7 e were in Bruysdal we did not hurry 
ourselves, and took our pleasure deliberately. One 
evening after dinner our host and A. went to the lake ; 
I stayed behind, and was rowed about by one of the 
crew with a fly-rod in the mouth of the river. The soft 
midnight gloaming, the silence broken only by the late 
call of the cuckoo in the woods, made me careless about 
the trout, and, after catching four or five, I preferred to 
talk to my companion. As a seaman he bad been all 
over the world. He had been up the great rivers in the 
tropics, had seen pythons and alligators there, and was 
rather disappointed to find no alligators in the fjords. Al- 
ligators, I explained to him, would find a difficulty in get- 
ting a living there. In the winter they would be frozen 
into logs, and would be found dead when they thawed 
again, and on the whole they preferred a warm climate. 
As the thermometer had been standing at 80° that day 
in our deck cabin, and was 70° at that moment though 
it was midnight, my account was clearly unsatisfactory, 
but he dropped the subject, and from alligators travelled 
to human beings. He admired his own countrymen, 



Norway Once More 325 

but could not absolutely approve of them. He bad seen 
savages little if at all superior to apes, but nowhere had 
he fallen in with men of any description who made such 
brutes of themselves as Englishmen and Scotchmen 
when the drink was in them. He himself had drunk 
water only for fifteen years, and intended to keep to it. 
I could not but admit that it might be so. Those pre- 
cious beauties whom we had just seen in the North Sea 
were illustrations not to be gainsaid. 

One difficulty was to know when to go to bed. The 
sun might set, but the glow lasted till it rose again ; and 
the cool night air was so delicious and so invigorating that 
to sleep was a waste of our opportunities. That evening 
when I went to my cabin, I stood looking out through 
the port-hole on the pink flushed hills and water, the 
full moon just rising behind a hollow between the high 
mountains and pouring a stream of gold upon the fjord. 
Now would be the time, I thought, if any Nixie would 
rise out of the water and sing a song to me of the times 
long ago. It would have been a rash experiment once. 
The knight who listened to the Nixie's song forgot 
country, and home, and wife, and child, plunged wildly 
into the waters, and was borne away in the white arms 
of the seducing spirit, never to be seen on earth again. 
But the knight was young — and I, with the blood creep- 
ing slowly in my old veins, felt that for my part I could 
listen safely, and should like for once to hear such a 
thing. Alas ! as I stood at the window there came no 

Nixie, but the pale figure floated before me of , first 

as she was in her beauty five-and-forty years ago, then 
dissolving into the still fair, but broken and aged, woman 
as I had last seen her, fading away out of a life which 
had blighted the promise of the morning. Her widowed 
daughter sleeps beside her, having lost first her young 



326 Norway Once More 

husband and then the mother whom she worshipped. 
The Nixies are silent. The Trolls work unseen among 
the copper veins in the mountain chasms, and leave un- 
vexed the children of men. Valhalla is a dream, and 
Balder has become a solar myth ; but ghosts still haunt 
old eyes which have seen so many human creatures flit 
across the stage, play their parts, sad or joyful, and van- 
ish as they came. 

We stayed a whole week at Bruysdal. There was 
another spot which we knew of, as wild, as inaccessible, 
and as fertile, when we tried it last, in the desired sea- 
trout ; and besides sea-trout there were char — not mis- 
erable little things like those that are caught in Der- 
wentwater and Crummock, but solid two and three 
pounders that would fight for their lives like gentlemen. 

Across the mountain to Elversdale (that, again, is not 
the right name) an eagle might fly in half an hour, but 
he would fly over sheets of glacier and peak and ridges 
six thousand feet high. In fact, for human feet there 
was no road from Bruysdal thither, and the way round 
by water was nearly a hundred miles. But what were 
a hundred miles to the fiery dragon in the j'acht's en- 
gines? All he asks for is a ton or two of coal, and he 
thinks as little of taking you a hundred miles as you 
think yourself of an afternoon walk. We had the ship's 
washing, too, to fuck up on the way, and, besides the 
washing, the letters and newspapers which had been ac- 
cumulating for a fortnight, something to amuse us in 
the few hours which would be required for our trans- 
portation. After a week or two's absence from London 
one finds one's self strangely indifferent to what seems so 
important when one is in the middle of it. Speeches in 
Parliament remind one of the scuffling of kites and 
crows which Milton talks of. On this occasion, however, 



Norway Once More 327 

we had all of us a certain curiosity to bear what Lad be- 
come of tbe Franchise Bill, especially as our host is a 
sound hereditary Liberal, sounder and stancher a great 
deal than I am, and had duly paired on the Government 
side before he sailed. We bore the news, when it 
reached us, with extraordinary equanimity. Our appe- 
tite for luncheon was not affected. The crew did not 
mutiny, though three-fourths of them must have been 
among the two millions expectant of votes. For my own 
particular, I was conscious of pleasure greater than I 
had ever expected to receive from any political incident 
in the remainder of my life. In the first place, it is al- 
ways agreeable to see men behave courageously. The 
Peers had refused to walk this time through Coventry 
with halters about their necks. In the next, if they 
persevered, it might, one way or another, bring another 
sham to an end. The House of Lords had seemed to be 
something, and they were becoming a nothing. Tbe 
English Sovereign, too, is in a position not altogether 
befitting a human being with an immortal soul. No man 
or woman ought to be forced to say this or that, to pro- 
fess to approve of what he or she detests, in obedience 
to majorities in the House of Commons. Some day, 
perhaps, an English Sovereign will be found to say : "If 
you want an ornamental marionette at the top of you, to 
dance at your bidding, you must find someone else. I, 
for one, decline to figure any longer in that character. 
I will be a reality, or I will not be at all." In constitu- 
tional countries those who hold high offices do tend to 
drift into a similar marionette condition. A dean and 
chapter who receive a mandate to choose A. B. as their 
bishop, who invite divine assistance to help them to 
elect a fit person, and then duly appoint the said A. B., 
they too are not to be envied. Sovereigns and high 



328 Norway Once More 

persons of all kinds in such situations are idols set up 
in high places, •with the form of dignity and without the 
power ; and if we must have idols they should be wood 
or stone, or gutta-percha, as more flexible, not human 
creatures, with blood running in the veius of them. I 
had been very sorry to see the English peers, ostensibly 
the flower of the whole nation, lapsing gradually into a 
similar gilded degradation, the lay lords sinking to the 
level of the spiritual, and by the wise to be mentioned 
only with a smile. They had at last stood fast, though, 
alas, it was only for a time. They had recovered the 
resj)ect of all honest men in doing so, and seemed on 
the way to become honest men themselves again in one 
shape or another, and not despised humbugs. 

I have high honor for the Peers ; I think them an 
excellent institution, political and social, but one must 
draw a line somewhere, and I draw one at dukes. From 
their cradle upward all persons, things, circumstances, 
combine to hide from dukes that they are mortal, sub- 
ject to limitations like the rest of us. A duke, at least 
an English duke, though he may be called a peer, yet is 
a peer only by courtesy. He has no social equal. He 
is at the summit of the world, and has no dignity beyond 
his own to which he can aspire. He grows up in pos- 
session of everything which the rest of mankind are striv- 
ing after. In his own immediate surroundings, on his 
vast estates, among his multitudinous dependants, he has 
only to will to be obeyed. When he goes out among his 
fellow-creatures, they bow before so great a presence 
with instinctive deference. In him offences are venial 
which would be fatal to an ordinary man. The earth, so 
far as he is able to know anything of it, is a place where 
others have to struggle, but where he has only to desire. 
To do without what at any moment he happens to wish 



Norway Once More 329 

for, which moralists consider so important a part of 
education, is a form of discipline denied to a duke from 
his cradle, and if the moralists are right he is so much 
the worse for the want of it. 

I think we could do without dukes. That is the only 
reform which I wish for in the Upper House. At any 
rate, they are over-large figures for a quiet Norwegian 
valley. " There came three Dukes a-riding." * Several 
Dukes have looked in at Elversdale of late years in their 
floating palaces. They have gone for sport there, as in 
fact we were doing ourselves, and it is hard to say that 
they had not as good a right as we had. But the Norse 
proprietors, at least some of them, are Republicans, and 
are not altogether pleased to see these lordly English 
looking in upon their quiet homes. The shores of the 
fjord, the rivers, the lakes, are their property. They are 
liberal and hospitable ; the land they live in is their 
own ; but they are courteous and gracious, and have 
been willing hitherto to allow their visitors all fair 
opportunities of entertaining themselves. They are 
aware, however (it cannot be a secret to them), that if 
a Norwegian, or any stranger, American, French, or 
German, travelling without introduction in Scotland, 
were to ask for a day's sporting in a preserved forest 
or salmon river, he would not only be refused, but 
would be so refused as to make him feel that his re- 
quest was an impertinence. The Lord of the soil in 
Norway perhaps may occasionally ask himself why he 
should be expected to be more liberal. His salmon and 
trout are an important part of his winter provision. He 
nets them, salts and stores them for the long nights and 
short days, when the lakes are frozen, and the valleys 
are full of snow, and there is no food for man or beast, 
* Neither of them was the good duke alluded to at page 287, 



330 Norway Once More 

save what is laid up in summer. Why should he give 
it away ? 

There are two rivers in Elversdale and two sets of 
lakes, the respective valleys meeting at the head of the 
fjord, where on a vast and prettily wooded moraine there 
stands, as usual, a white church, the steeple of which 
shows far up along the glens, the scattered peasants 
gathering thither in their boats on Sundays. Two great 
owners divide the domain, one of them having the best 
fishing. It was in one of his lakes close to the fjord that 
in 1881 we filled our baskets, and now hoped to fill them 
again. For this lake, at what Ave considered an un- 
usually high price, we got leave ; but we soon found 
that it had been given us in irony. The sultry weather 
had melted the edges of the great glacier which we 
could see from our deck. The ice-water, pouring clown 
in a cataract, tinted the limpid water into a color like 
soap-suds, and not a fish would take. Round and round 
the lake we rowed, with wearisome repetition ; nothing 
came to our minnows. In the boats we sat, tormented, 
ourselves, by flies such as are seen nowhere but in Nor- 
way. There is one as big as a drone, and rather like 
one, but with a green head, and a pair of nippers in it 
that under a magnifying-glass are a wonder to look at. 
This, I suppose, is the wretch described by " Three in 
Norway," who speak of a fly that takes a piece out of 
you, and flies to the next rock to eat it. We were tor- 
tured, but caught nothing save a few tiny char, which 
ventured out upon the shallows when the monsters were 
lying torpid. We soon saw how it was. Where we 
w r ere there was nothing to be done, but two miles up the 
valley, above the hay meadows and potato fields, was 
another lake into which no glacier water ran, splendidly 
rich in char and trout. There flies might torment, but 



Norway Once More 331 

there was at least sport — legitimate, ample, and subject 
to no disappointment. Thither we applied for leave to 
go, and (it was perhaps the first time that such a thing 
ever happened to any Englishman in that country) we 
met with a flat refusal. The owner was tired of being 
called upon to provide sport for strangers of whom he 
knew nothing. He gave no reasons ; when we pressed 
for one he answered quietly that the fish were his, and 
that he preferred to keep them for himself. In our first 
impatience we anathematized him to ourselves as a 
brute, but we reflected that he was doing only what 
.fcvery one of us at home in possession of a similar treas- 
ure would do as a matter of course. England is more 
advanced than Norway, but English principles and habits 
are making way there ; that is all. This is the first of 
toy three novelties. 

By the proprietor of the other glen and the other 
lakes we were entertained more graciously. He re- 
membered us. He and his family had visited the 
drowned yacht. His boys had been fed with sugar- 
plums, his daughters had been presented with books 
and colored prints, which still hung about his farm- 
house. His waters were not the best ; but the scenery 
about them was at any rate most beautiful, and river, 
lakes, boats, all that he had, was placed at our disposal. 
Three lovely days we spent there — rocks and mountains, 
trees and cataracts, the belts of forest, and the high 
peaks above them soaring up into the eternal blue. 
These were our surroundings, changing their appearance 
every hour as the shadows shifted with the moving sun. 
The rare trout rose at the fly, the rarer salmon-trout 
ran at the phantoms at distant intervals. In the hot 
midday we would land and seek shade from nut bush or 
alder. The ice-cold rivulets trickled down out of the 



332 Norway Once More 

f;ir-off snow. The cuckoos called in the woods. The 
wild roses clustered round us, crimson buds and pale 
pink flowers shining against the luxuriant green of the 
leaves. The wild campanulas hung their delicate heads 
along the shores, fairest and daintiest of all the wild 
flowers of nature, like pieces of the azure heaven itself 
shaped into those cups and hells. The bilberry clus- 
tered among the rocks, hanging out its purple fruit to 
us to gather as we sat. All this was perfectly delight- 
ful, and it was only the brutal part of our souls that re- 
mained a little discontented because we had not fish 
enough, and sighed for the yet more perfect Eden from 
which Ave were excluded. 

Sunday came, and it was very pretty to see, on the 
evening before and in the early morning, the boats 
streaming up the fjord and down from the inland lakes. 
One boat passed the yacht, rowed by ten stalwart young 
women, who handled their oars like Saltash fishwives. 
With a population so scattered, a single priest has two 
or more churches to attend to at considerable distances, 
pastors being appointed according to the numbers of 
the flock, and not the area they occupy. Thus at El- 
versdale there was a regular service only on alternate 
Sundays, and this Sunday it was not Elversdale's turn. 
But there was a Samling — a gathering for catechising 
and prayer — at our bunder's house, where the good man 
himself, or some itinerant minister, officiated. Several 
hundreds must have collected, the children being in the 
largest proportion. The Norse people are quiet, old- 
fashioned Lutherans, who never read a newspaper, and 
have never heard of a doubt about the truth of what 
their fathers believed. When the meeting was over, 
many of them who were curious to see an English yacht 
and its occupants came on board. The owner welcomed 



Norway Once More 333 

the elders at the gangway, talked to them in their own 

tongue, and showed them over the ship. A had 

handfuls of sugar-plums for the little ones. They were 
plain-featured for the most part, with fair hair and blue 
eyes — the men in strong homespun broadcloth, the 
women in black serge, with a bright sash about the 
waist, and a shawl over the shoulders with bits of modest 
embroidery at the corners. They were perfectly well- 
behaved, rational, simple, unself-conscious, a healthy 
race in mind and body whom it was pleasant to see. I 
could well understand what the Americans mean when 
they say that, of all the colonists who migrate to them, 
the Norse are the best — and many go. Norway is as 
full as it can hold, and the young swarms who in old 
days roved out in their pirate- ships over France and 
England and Ireland now pass peaceably to the Far West. 
Our time was slipping away, we had but a few da}-s 
left. Instead of exploring new regions we agreed to go 
back once more to Bruysdal, and its trout, and its bears. 
We knew that there we should be welcome again. And 
at Elversdale, too, we were leaving friends. Even the 
stern old fellow who had been so sulky might have 
opened his arms if we had stayed a little longer. But 
we did not put him to the test. The evening before we 
sailed our landlord came to take leave, bringing his wife 
with him, a sturdy little woman with a lady's manners 
under a rough costume. He was presented with a few 
pounds of best Scotch oatmeal, a tin of coffee for his old 
mother, and a few other delicacies in true Homeric style. 
He in turn came next morning at daybreak, as the an- 
chor was coming up, with a fresh-run salmon, which he 
had just taken out of his trammels. We parted with 
warm hopes expressed that we might one da}* meet 
again ; and the next quiet Englishman who goes thither 



334: Norway Once More 

will find all the waters open to him as freely as they 
used to be. 

Yacht life gives ample leisure. I had employed part 
of mine in making sketches. One laughs at one's ex- 
traordinary performances a day or two after one has 
completed them. Yet the attempt is worth making. 
It teaches one to admire less grudgingly the work of 
real artists who have conquered the difficulties. Books 
are less trying to vanity, for one is producing nothing 
of one's own, and submitting only to be interested or 
amused, if the author can succeed in either. One's ap- 
petite is generally good on these occasions, and one can 
devour anything ; but in the pure primitive element of 
sea, and mountains, and unprogressive peasantry I had 
become somehow fastidious. I tried a dozen novels one 
after the other without success ; at last, perhaps the 
morning we left Elvei-sdale, I found on the library 
shelves " Le Pere Goriot." I had read a certain quan- 
tity of Balzac at other times, in deference to the high 

opinion entertained of him. N , a fellow of Oriel 

and once member for Oxford, I remembered insisting 
to me that there was more knowledge of human nat- 
ure in Balzac than in Shakespeare. I had myself ob- 
served in the famous novelist a knowledge of a certain 
kind of human nature which Shakespeare let alone — a 
nature in which healthy vigor had been corrupted into a 
caricature by highly seasoned artificial civilization. Hot- 
house plants, in which the flowers had lost their grace 
of form and natural beauty, and had gained instead a 
poison-loaded and perfumed luxuriance, did not exist in 
Shakespeare's time, and if they had they would probably 
not have interested him. However, I had not read " Le 
Pure Goriot," and as I had been assured that it was the 
finest of Balzac's works, I sat down to it and deliber- 



Norway Once More 335 

ately read it through. My first impulse after it was 
over was to plunge into the sea to wash myself. As we 
were going ten knots, there were objections to this 
method of ablution, but I felt that I had been in abom- 
inable company. The book seemed to be the very worst 
ever written by a clever man. But it, and N 's ref- 
erence to Shakespeare, led me into a train of reflections. 
Le Pere Goriot, like King Lear, has two daughters. 
Like Lear, he strips himself of his own fortune to pro- 
vide for them in a distinguished manner. He is left to 
poverty and misery, while his daughters live in splendor. 
Why is Lear so grand ? Why is Le Pere Goriot detest- 
able ? Iu the first place, all the company in Balzac are 
bad. Le Pere Goriot is so wrapped up in his delightful 
children that their very vices charm him, and their 
scented boudoirs seem a kind of Paradise. Lear, iu the 
first scence of the play, acts and talks like an idiot, but 
still an idiot with a moral soul in him. Take Lear's own 
noble nature from him, take Kent away, and Edgar, and 
the fool, and Cordelia — and the actors in the play, it 
must be admitted, are abominable specimens of human- 
ity — yet even so, leaving the story as it might have been 
if Marlowe had written it instead of Shakespeare, Gon- 
eril and Began would still have been terrible, while the 
Paris dames of fashion are merely loathsome. What is 
the explanation of the difference ? Partly, I suppose, it 
arises from the comparative intellectual stature of the 
two sets of women. Strong natures and weak may be 
equally wicked. The strong are interesting, because 
they have daring and force. You fear them as you fear 
panthers and tigers. You hate, but you admire. M. 
Balzac's heroines have no intellectual nature at all. 
They are female swine out of Circe's sty ; as selfish, as 
unscrupulous as any daughter of Adam could conven- 



330 Norway Once More 

iently be, but soft, and corrupt, and cowardly, and sen- 
sual ; so base and low that it would be a compliment to 
call them devils. I object to being brought into the so- 
ciety of people in a book whom I would shut my eyes 
rather than see in real life. Goneril and Regan would 
be worth looking at in a cage in the Zoological Gardens. 
One would have no curiosity to stare at a couple of 
dames caught out of Coventry Street or the Quadrant. 
From Shakespeare to Balzac, from the 16th century to 
the 19th, we have been progressing to considerable pur- 
pose. If the state of literature remains as it has hith- 
erto been, the measure of our moral condition, Europe 
has been going ahead with a vengeance. I put out the 
taste of "Le Pere Goriof'with "Persuasion." After- 
ward I found a book really worth reading, with the un- 
inviting title of "Adventures in Sport and War," the 
author of it a young Marquis de Compiegne, a ruined 
representative of the old French noblesse, who appears 
first as a penniless adventurer seeking his fortune in 
America as a bird-stuffer, and tempted by an advertise- 
ment into the swamps of Florida in search of specimens, 
a beggarly experience, yet told with naivete and sim- 
plicity, truth and honor surviving by the side of abso- 
lute helplessness. Afterward we find our Marquis in 
France again, fighting as a private in the war with Ger- 
many, and taken prisoner at Sedan ; and again in the 
campaign against the Commune, at the taking of Paris, 
and the burning of the Tuileries — a tragic picture, 
drawn, too, with the entire unconsciousness of the con- 
dition to which Balzac, Madame Sand, and the rest of 
the fraternity had dragged down the French nation. 

But by this time we are back in Bruysdal, and I come 
now to the second of my three incidents in which the 
reader was to be interested — a specimen of what Norway 



Norway Once More 337 

can do when put upon its mettle in the way of land- 
scape effect. The weather had changed. When we 
left, the temperature in our deck cabin was 80°. The 
mercury in our barometer stood at 30 and 3-10 ths. 
When we returned the pressure had relaxed to 29, while 
the temperature had fallen nearly forty degrees. Our 
light flannels had gone bach to the drawers, and the 
thickest woollens would hardly keep out the cold. The 
rain was falling as in a universal shower-bath, lashing 
into bubbles the surface of the fjord. The cataracts 
were roaring down ; the river was in a flood, the shore 
and the trees dimly visible through the descending tor- 
rent. Here, if ever, was a fishing day for those who 
were not afraid of being dissolved like sugar. Our host 
challenged us to venture, and we were ashamed to hesi- 
tate. In huge boots and waterproof and oilskin hats 
(may the wretch who made my mackintosh for me in 
London be sent to the unpleasant place and punished 
appropriately) we were rowed up into the lake, sent out 
our spinners, and were soon in desperate battle each 
with our respective monster, half-blinded by wind and 
rain. On days like this the largest fish roam the waters 
like hungry pike. We had two hours of it. Flesh and 
blood could stand no more. We made one circuit of 
the lake ; neither we nor the boatmen could face a sec- 
ond, and we went home with our spoils. Enough said 
about that. Now for my landscape. On one side of 
Bruysdal the mountains rise from the water in a series 
of precipices to the snow-line, and are broken into deep 
wooded gorges. Down these the cataracts were raging ; 
very fine in their way, but with nothing uncommon about 
them. The other side of the valley is formed quite dif- 
ferently. A long, broad plateau of smooth, unbroken 
rock ascends at a low gradient for miles, reaching event- 
22 



338 Norway Once More 

ually an equal altitude, and losing itself among the 
clouds. At the hollow where the lake lies, this plateau 
is as if broken sharply off, ending in an overhanging 
precipice perhaps a mile long, and from three hundred 
to four hundred feet high ; higher it may he, for the 
scale of everything is gigantic, and the eye often under- 
rates what it sees. Over the whole wide upper area the 
rain had been falling for hours with the fury of a tropical 
thunder-shower. There being no hollows or inequali- 
ties to collect the water, and neither grass nor forest 
to absorb the flood, it ran straight down over the 
smooth slopes in an even, shallow stream. On reach- 
ing the cliffs it fell over and scattered into spray, and 
there it seemed to hang extended over a mile of per- 
pendicular rock, like a delicately transparent lace veil 
undulating in the eddies of the wind. It was a sight 
to be seen once and never to be forgotten. Water is 
a strange Proteus — now transparent as air, now a mir- 
ror, now rippled and the color of the sky. It falls in 
foam in the torrent. It is level as quicksilver, or it 
is broken into waves of infinite variety. It is ice, it 
is snow, it is rain, it is fog and cloud, to say nothiug of 
the shapes it takes in organic substances. But never 
did I see it play so singular a part as when floating to 
and fro in airy drapery, with the black wet rock showing 
like a ghost behind it. The whole valley was dim with 
the falling rain, the far mountains invisible in mist, the 
near rocks and trees drenched and dripping. Some 
artist of the Grosvenor Gallery might make a picture of 
the place as a part of Hades, and people it with moist 
spirits. 

In honor of our endurance and our success, and to 
put us in heart again for the next day, we had a bottle 
of champagne at dinner, I in silence drinking to myself 



Norway Once More 339 

the health, of the House of Lords in general as well as 
that of our entertainer. And now I have only to re- 
late the disgrace which befell myself when the next 
day came, to end what I have to say about our fish- 
ing. I had a precious phantom minnow, a large one, 
which had come victorious out of that day's conflicts. 
Before putting it on again my eye was caught by the 
frayed look of the gut trace. It seemed strong when 
I tried it ; but perhaps I wished to save myself trouble, 
and treated it as Don Quixote treated his helmet the 
second time. Well, we started in our boat again, a 
hundred yards below the point where the river leaves 
the lake. We were rowing up the strong stream, I care- 
lessly letting out my line, and in that place expecting 
nothing, when there came a crash ; the slack Hue was 
entangled round the reel, which could not run, the rod 
bent double from the combined weight of some sea- 
trout huger than usual and the rapid water. Alas ! in a 
moment the rod had straightened again, and sea-trout, 
phantom, and my own reputation as a fisherman were 
gone together. I could not get over it, and the sport 
had lost its charm. We caught several fish afterward, 
and my son got one nearly ten pounds weight. I was 
glad for him, but for myself the spirit had gone out of 
me. In the afternoon, the river being in high order, 
we put our lighter rods together to try the pools with 

salmon flies. D caught a salmon-peel of four pounds 

weight. I had another smaller one ; afterward scram- 
bling along some steep, slippery rocks I reached a prom- 
ising-looking run, and, letting my fly go down over it, I 
rose a true salmon and a big one. I drew back and 
changed my fly. A salmon, under such conditions, will 
almost always come again if you wait a minute or two 
and throw him a new temptation. I was looking to be 



340 Norway Once More 

consoled for my morning's misfortune, when at the 
moment a native boat dashed over the spot loaded with 
timber. My salmon vanished into space and I saw him 
no more. I ought to have been disgusted. I discovered 
myself reflecting instead, that after all the salmon was 
better off as he was, and I no worse — a state of mind 
unpermitted to a fisherman, and implying that my con- 
nection with the trade, now more than fifty years old, 
may be coming to an end. Alas, that all things do come 
to an end ! Life itself runs to an end. Our Norway 
holiday was running to an end, though the prettiest part 
of it was still to come. We had to look in at Bergen 
again on our way home to pick up letters, etc. Bergen 
was nearly two hundred miles from us, and to break the 
distance we were to anchor somewhere about half-way. 
Our last day at Bruysdal was a Sunday again. "We were 
popular there, and on Sunday evening we had a small 
fleet about us, with boys and girls and music. An in- 
genious lad had fitted a screw propeller of his own 
making to his boat, which he worked with a crank. With 
this, and the Norwegian flag flying, he careered round 
and round the yacht at a most respectable pace, the lads 
and lasses following in their Sunday dresses, like the 
nymphs and Tritons after Neptune's car. A boat came 
on board us with two men in her whom we did not 
know. They had a sick relation at home and wanted 
medicine. We gave them what we had. They inno- 
cently asked how much they were to pay, bringing out 
their pocket-books, and were perplexed when D- — — 
laughed and told them " nothing." They doubted, per- 
haps, the efficacy of the remedies. Anyhow they were 
gratified. The Bruysdal community fired a gun when 
we steamed away next day, and saluted us with their 
flag from the school-house ; there too we shall find a 



Norway Once More 341 

welcome if we ever return : meanwhile we were gone, 
for the present to see it no more. 

In the evening we turned into a spot which our pilot 
knew of as a quiet anchorage, which I will call Orlestrund. 
"We were by this time far away from the mountains. 
We found ourselves in a soft landlocked bay, with green 
meadows and low softly wooded hills ; the air was sweet 
with the scent of the new-mown hay ; there were half a 
dozen farm-houses, which seemed to shave between them 
the xichly cultivated and smiling soil. A church stood 
conspicuous near the shore ; on one side of it was what 
seemed to be a school ; on the other, among high trees, 
we saw the roof and chimneys of the pastor's house, a 
respectable and even superior-looking residence. Work 
for the day was over when we let fall our anchor. It 
was about eight o'clock, a lovely summer evening, with 
three hours of subdued daylight remaining. The boys 
and young men, dismissed from the fields, were scatter- 
ed about the bay in boats catching haddock and whiting. 
Looking round the pretty scene we saw a group outside 
the gate of the manse, which was evidently the pastor 
and his family, himself an elderly gentleman, his wife, 
and six young ones, descending from a girl of perhaps 
sixteen to little ones just able to take care of themselves-'. 
They were examining the yacht, and it was easy to see 
what happened. The old couple, with the three young- 
est children, turned in to their gate and disappeared. 
The others, the eldest girl and two brothers, had got 
leave to go out in the boat and look at us, for they flew 
along the shore to their boat-house, and presently came 
out on the fjord. Not wishing to seem too curious they 
lingered awhile with their lines and caught four or five 
haddock. They then gradually drew nearer, the girl 
rowing, her two brothers in the stern. D beckoned 



34:2 Norway Once More ' 

to thein to come closer, and then, in Norse, invited 
them on board. They were roughly dressed, not 
better perhaps than the children of the peasantry, but 
their looks were refined, their manner modest and 
simple, free alike from shyness and forwardness. The 
daughter spoke for the rest. She was tall for her years, 
with large eyes, a slight but strong figure, and features 

almost handsome. D took her round the ship. 

She moved gracefully, answered questions and asked 
them with as much ease as if she had been among 
friends and relations. She kept her young brothers in 
order by a word, and in short behaved with a composure 
which would have been surprising in any girl of such 
an age when thrown suddenly among strangers. She 
asked if we had ladies on board, and seemed disap- 
pointed, but not the least disturbed, when we told her 
that there were only ourselves. Presently she began to 
speak English, with a fair accent too, better than most 
French or Germans ever arrive at. We asked her if she 
had been in England. She had never been away from 
Orlestrund. She had taught herself English, she said 
quite simply, "from book." D accuses her of hav- 
ing asked him if he could speak Norse, after he had 
been talking in that language to her for ten minutes. 
I insisted, with no knowledge of the language myself, 
but merely drawing my inference from the nature of 
things, that a creature of such fine behavior could not 
have put it as question, but must have observed, " And 
you too speak Norse ! " We asked her name. She was 
called Theresa. Theresa certainly, but I could not 
catch the surname with entire clearness. She wished 
to bring her father to see us. We would gladly have 
seen both the father and the mother who in such a spot 
had contrived to rear so singular a product. She gath- 



Norway Once More 343 

ered up her two boys, sprang into her skiff, seized the 
oars, and shot away over the water. We saw her land 
and vanish into the shrubbery. In a few minutes she 
appeared again, but only with a little sister this time. 
She came to tell us that her father could not leave his 
house at so late an hour. He was sorry he could not 
use the opportunity of making our acquaintance. He 

desired to know who we were. D Avrote his name 

and gave it to her. She went down the gangway again, 
and joined her sister, who had hid herself in her shawl 
in timid modesty. 

They glided off into the gloaming, and we saw them 
no more. Very pretty, I thought this Norse girl, so in- 
nocent, so self-possessed, who seemed in that lonely spot, 
surrounded only by peasants, to have educated herself 
into a character so graceful. If our modern schools, with 
competition and examinations, and the rights of woman, 
and progress of civilization, and the rest of it, turn out 
women as good and as intelligent as this young lassie, 
they will do better than I, for one, expect of them. 
Peace be with her, and a happy, useful life at the side 
of some fit companion ! In the wide garden of the 
world, with its hotbed luxuriance and feverish exotics, 
there will be one nook at any rate where nature com- 
bined with genuine art will bloom into real beauty. 

So ends my brief journal — ends with Theresa, for I 
can add nothing which will not be poor and trivial after 
so fair a figure — and, indeed, there is nothing more to 
say. The next morning we hastened on to Bergen. The 
afternoon which followed we were out again on the North 
Sea, which we found this time in angry humor. But 
the engines made their revolutions accurately. The log 
gave the speed which was expected, and we made the 
passage to Harwich again in the exact period which had 



344 Norway Once Move 

been predetermined. We were late, indeed, by twelve 
minutes, after allowing for the difference of longitude, and 
these minutes lost required to be accounted for. But 
we recollected that we had stopped precisely that num- 
ber of minutes on the Dogger Bank to take soundings, 
and the mystery was perfectly explained. It reminded 
me of a learned Professor of Oxford, who was engaged 
on sacred chronology. He told us one night in Common 
Koom that he had the dates of every event complete 
from the Creation till the present day. He had been so 
minutely successful that his calculations were right to 
twelve hours. These hours had puzzled him till he recol- 
lected that when the sun was arrested by Joshua it had 
stood still for a whole day, exactly the period which he 
wanted, and the apparent error had only verified his 
accuracy. 






